Depending on when you became a fan, the debate over who the greatest professional wrestler of all time often boils down to two particular wrestlers — Hulk Hogan and Ric Flair. One led WWE into its first golden era of the 1980s by main eventing eight of its first nine WrestleManias and holding the WWF Championship for more than 2,000 combined days. The other was the pinnacle of southern professional wrestling, holding the NWA and WCW World Heavyweight Championships a combined 14 times (or more depending on which reigns “count”), leading the iconic Four Horsemen faction and having legendary feuds with Harley Race, Dusty Rhodes, Ricky Steamboat and Sting.
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It’s no secret that in terms of careers, Hogan thinks incredibly high of himself. Yet in a new interview with India Today, “The Hulkster” openly admitted that Flair was the better wrestler.
“I will gracefully accept and acknowledge that compliment (the interviewer referred to him as one of the greatest of all time) because it means so much, especially coming from my peers, to say that,” Hogan said. “The guy who is my hero, and who I think is the greatest wrestler of all time, that’s Ric Flair. So I do appreciate the comment but I have a different opinion about who is the best wrestler and the greatest of all time, I have to go with Flair. It’s in his blood he laid the groundwork. He raised the bar that no one has really been able to follow as far as work ethic.”
Do you agree with Hogan’s assessment? Let us know in the comments below!
Earlier in the week Flair gave an interview with WWE UK where he stated that, despite having spent decades longer in the business, Triple H actually knows more about wrestling than “The Nature Boy.”
“He exemplifies ‘Legend’ more than anybody because he is not only a great performer, he has studied the business, he is a historian,” Flair said. “He probably knows more about the business than I do and I’ve been in it 30 years longer than he has.”
“He [Triple H] came into it with a knowledge of it that I hadn’t seen anybody at his age come into the business with,” he continued. “He was respectful every day and it was fun to see someone that just loved to be in the ring and loved the business. He became a great worker and he has also taken that with him and has become an intricate part of the company.”
