Ric Flair’s retirement has meant a lot of people throwing around a lot of superlatives about his career. It is impossible in any legitimate sport to conclusively say that one person is the greatest of all time because things change over time and comparisons cease to be valid. Would Ali really have beaten Tyson? Is Ronaldo really better than Best? These things can be debated but never proven. In a worked sport like wrestling it is even harder to debate a question like the greatest of all time because there are so many other factors than simple ability.

There is drawing power – Flair was a strong draw for his entire career, especially when the promoters actually used him in a way that would draw money. But Flair wasn’t a cash juggernaut like Hulk Hogan or Stone Cold Steve Austin. He also spent the bulk of his NWA career as champion when it was the title which drew more than the man wearing it. If Flair went to Texas to wrestle Kerry Von Erich it was Von Erich verses the NWA champion which drew. That’s not to say Flair wasn’t a big draw because he was, it just means that the nature of being NWA champion means he wasn’t always put in a position where he – Ric Flair – had to draw money. He was also a heel for so much of his prime that you could argue it was the babyfaces who drew – people paid to see Dusty Rhodes beat Ric Flair, people paid to see Hulk Hogan wrestle someone. But it is a bit misleading to think this way as Flair was only NWA champion because he could draw – gone were the days when the champion had to be the best wrestler in the pack just to keep the belt safe from double crosses. Flair is undoubtedly a Hall of Fame calibre draw but he’s not the greatest draw of all time.

As far as in ring ability goes Flair was extremely good. People tend to fall into two camps – those who think he worked the same basic match every night and those who think he was the most versatile performer ever. Certainly he had great matches with people that didn’t make a habit of having great matches. Lex Luger for example – there aren’t many four star matches in his portfolio which didn’t include Ric Flair. He had the first great match of Sting’s career and there are plenty who would argue he was the opponent who brought most out of Sting throughout the latter’s career. There are even rumours he had watchable matches with El Gigante but as these happened at house shows with no footage to back them up we must assume they are the product of a warped sense of humour.

Wrestling styles change as you go through time and around the world. What is state of the art in New York in 2008 might be considered terrible in Tokyo in 1985. What was mind blowing in Texas in 1985 would mystify an audience in Mexico City in 2000. Flair’s style is less flashy than AJ Styles, less hard hitting than Chris Benoit and less credible than Lou Thesz but it worked for him. It was a perfect fit for the Ric Flair character and there hasn’t been anyone in the world having such consistently good matches from the late 1970s to the present day.

A word too about Flair’s versatility. He could work just as well as a babyface or a heel. Though he himself preferred being a heel, he could switch between the two with absolute credibility at a moment’s notice. Witness 1989 where he was a dastardly heel up until the moment Terry Funk appeared, at which point he instantly became a beloved babyface. In the 1980s when he was a touring world champion he would face the area’s top star each night. Some of these were heels, some were babyfaces and Flair had to adapt every night. When Jim Crockett created the Red Menace – Ivan and Nikita Koloff – it was Flair that stood up to them as the American babyface. The same Ric Flair who fought Dusty Rhodes at the Starrcades of 1984 and 1985 (sandwiching the Russians angle) and was a hated heel. His turns never watered him down or made people tired of him. He had a unique ability to be the mirror image of his given opponent.

Flair’s charisma and interview skills are legendary. The latter was often the victim of promoters who didn’t know how good he was. His last years in the WWE were foolishly silent as the writers didn’t get his style and he didn’t get their writing. Rather than let him go out and talk his talk they tried to script sound bytes for him. They couldn’t contain his charisma though – you only have to see him walk to the ring or strut or run his fingers through his hair or go "Woooo" to appreciate what a special talent he had. His promos were on a par with men like Dusty Rhodes and Roddy Piper – he was part of an elite group of talkers. He came from an age where television was for super stars to work very short squash matches (if they wrestled on TV at all) and do interviews to hype up the next show. Flair would walk into a television studio in Portland or Chicago or Atlanta or Memphis and just by the way he dressed, the way he walked and the way he spoke, the fans knew they were seeing the very best in the business.

So if you analyse the different factors you find that Flair was great at just about everything – never perhaps the outstanding performer in the field but always near the top and the only man consistently at the top in every area. Dusty Rhodes could match him on the microphone but pales in the ring, Benoit could match him in the ring but lacked his charisma. Flair could be said to be the greatest all round performer in history.

But if we do a little experiment it becomes clearer why Flair is the greatest wrestler of all time. What you do is take a rival name and simple switch them around. So you ask would Ric Flair have been a bigger star in the 1950s and 60s than Lou Thesz would’ve been in the 80s and 90s? The answer there is almost certainly yes. Ric Flair might not have been as successful in that era as Thesz was but he would’ve been a star. This was the age of Gorgeous George and Buddy Rogers – Flair would’ve fitted right in. If we’re talking the greatest of all time then moving wrestlers through time and space seems a valid measuring stick. I would argue that in the 1980s, Ric Flair in the WWF would’ve been a bigger star than Hulk Hogan in the NWA at the same time. Again, Flair wouldn’t have been as big a star as Hogan was but as one of Vince’s top stars he would’ve been more successful than Hogan under Jim Crockett.

If we take the comparison overseas it is the same story – Flair would’ve been a bigger star in Japan than Inoki would’ve been in the USA. Ditto El Santo in Mexico. There is a universality about the Ric Flair character which would get him over anywhere he is allowed to be strong. Local stars will always have the edge in terms of adoration but Flair was a truly global star who could be understood by anyone, anywhere.

And those are a few hastily assembled reasons why I consider Ric Flair to be the greatest pro wrestler (or sports entertainer) in history. It isn’t any one element – it is all of them. It is the whole package – a performer who doesn’t need to say anything to grab your attention, who when he does say something makes you love him or hate him, who will have a great match with anyone you throw at him, anywhere in the world and who will always do his best to make everyone look great. In the words of the song, "Nobody does it better, makes me feel sad for the rest, nobody does it half as good as you, baby, you're the best".