Could The Dream Match Finally Happen?
In 1991, it was a different wrestling landscape as JCP was now owned by Ted Turner and rebranded, World Championship Wrestling, there was a change in management, which opened the door for Flair to finally jump ship to the WWF. Flair butted heads with WCW President, Jim Herd, who really didn’t know anything about the wrestling business but wanted Flair to shave his hair, wear a diamond earring and change his name to Spartacus. Herd thought this would be more “hip”. One huge problem for Jim Herd, Flair didn’t have a contract because he fired him, but he was the reigning NWA World Champion. This was the time period that the champion had to put a $25K deposit down on the title, which Flair had done. So, he was free to jump to the WWF and bring the title with him since he was not given his deposit back by the NWA. Typically, the deposit was returned once the champion’s reign ended but since he was fired as champion, he never actually lost the title and his lease of the title remained since his deposit wasn’t returned.
Flair finally made the jump in August 1991, arriving with the big gold NWA World title, declaring himself “The Real World’s Champion”. Issuing a number of challenges to a number of WWF Superstars, including Roddy Piper and WWF Champion, Hulk Hogan. The NWA eventually returned his deposit and got their belt back but the damage to the NWA and WCW was already done as any champion they crowned would look illegitimate.
At the 1991 Survivor Series, Hogan defended the WWF Championship against the Undertaker. Flair decided to get involved and cost Hogan the title.
Hogan would regain the title a few days later but it appeared the groundwork was being laid for Hogan vs Flair for the WWF Championship at WrestleMania 8. The title ended up being vacated due to a controversial title finish and the decision was made that the winner of the 1992 Royal Rumble would become the new WWF Champion.
With the shocking help of Hulk Hogan, Flair would win the Rumble and become the new WWF Champion. It seemed all the pieces were falling into place for the WrestleMania dream match.
Now the next part of the story is a mystery to this day as the dream match not only didn’t take place at WrestleMania that year, but it also never happened on a significant show during Flair’s first WWF run that ended in 1993, when he decided to return to WCW. Now there is a number of different rumors and speculations such as neither man wanted to lose but the persistent rumor is that although it was going to be billed as the first ever match between the two, they actually had been wrestling each other at house shows leading up to the event and the rumor is the matches were either bad or McMahon hated what he was seeing in the ring and didn’t want the match to flop at Mania. The actual answer may never be known why the match didn’t happen at Mania but we ended up with the classic Flair vs Macho Man match, that honestly in my opinion was probably the better choice from an in-ring product standpoint as that match still holds up today.
