WWE Hall Of Famer Talks Heat With Ric Flair, Why Flair Refused To Wrestle Him
As noted, former AWA Champion and WWE Hall Of Famer Larry Zbyszko was recently interviewed by Hannibal TV, and discussed why he never got the opportunity to wrestle 'The Nature Boy' Ric Flair. You can check out what he had to say below:
Is there any specific reason he never wrestled Ric Flair:
"Not really, we were just in different territories. I was getting my break in New York, he was breaking down south after Valentine's wreck, and then we were both heels so it was always good guys vs. bad guys, so heels never really wrestled each other. It was rare. It just never happened."
Heat between him and Flair, and why Ric didn't want to wrestle him:
"One time, it's kind of a funny story — the wrestling business was weird in the old days with this brotherhood thing. Back in the old days when Flair was getting his start down south I was getting my big break in New York, and all the publicity and the magz — Flair was getting jealous. He made comments to the boys saying, 'That Zbyszko, he ain't crap. It's only because of Bruno, I'll take care of Zbyszko.' So the word got to me through the grapevine of the boys, so I said 'You tell Flair whenever he wants to see who the better guy is, let me know.' In those days that was the way of saying, alright we'll get in the ring and this is gonna be a shoot brother.
"Then some years down the road in WCW they wanted me and Flair to work with each other, because we've both been around 20 years and we've never wrestled each other. Then Flair didn't want to do it, he thought I would hurt him and wanted someone else — but that's when he like took off with the belt or something and went to the WWE, he jumped ship. It was right before that they wanted us to wrestle, because we never did it would've beed good. It would've been really great, but he was afraid then he took off."
If you use any of the quotes in this article, please credit Hannibal TV with an H/T to Wrestling Inc. for the transcription.
Source: Hannibal TV