'Who Is Ric Flair?'

I'll never forget the first time I was introduced to the name 'Ric Flair'.

We were at my Father's friends house in the late Summer of 1991 and his son asked me what I thought of Ric Flair joining the WWF.

My response was a simple, 'Who is Ric Flair?'

But it wasn't so simple - it was an ignorant reply in hindsight.

I was brought up a staunch WWF fan. Any other wrestling company paled in comparison to the gigantic stars on show in Vince McMahon's Federation.

For years, the ultimate dream match between fans of wrestling was a bout between the WWF's top star, Hulk Hogan, and his NWA/WCW counterpart, Ric Flair.

In the Summer of 1991 Flair and the WCW had a massive row and he left the company. It opened up the way for him to join the WWF and the dream feud was to become a reality.

What made Flair's arrival in the WWF even more spectacular was the fact that he was still recognised as WCW World champion. He even brought the big gold belt with him.

Within weeks of his debut, WCW filed a lawsuit against the WWF because they claimed the belt was their property. The WWF and Flair stopped using the belt for his appearances but they got around it by having The Nature Boy walk around with a WWF tag team belt and then the people in editing digitised the belt to distort it and the WWF claimed they were censoring the belt as it was promoting the other side. It was a great way of getting around the legalities.

Flair won the WWF's version of the World title after winning the Royal Rumble of 1992. That Royal Rumble match still is my favourite in the history of the event.

The win at the Rumble was meant to lead to the big match against Hulk Hogan at WrestleMania VIII. It didn't end up happening, though. Hogan was moved into a feud with Sid Justice because he was on his way out of the company for a year. Flair began a rivalry with 'Macho Man' Randy Savage in a feud that would last until the end of 1992.

Flair left the WWF in early 1993 after Vince McMahon gave him an early release. The two had had an agreement that if Flair was ever unhappy with his time in the Federation then he would allow him to leave.

Flair re-signed with WCW a few months later, and he was a babyface. I was a bit naive back then, I cheered the goodies and booed the heels. Coming back as the hero gave me an excuse to cheer him.

And I haven't stopped since.

If it wasn't for that short run in the WWF I doubt I would have enjoyed WCW when I started watching it religiously in 1993. Flair was the wrestler who made me appreciate that not all top stars had to be Hogan lookalikes.

I only caught Ric Flair from 1991 to today. His career spans back even further than that. Luckily for me, I managed to catch up with videotapes and DVDs. There are still hundreds of things I haven't seen, though.

Flair will be inducted into the WWE Hall of Fame this Saturday night. It is also likely that he will wrestle his last match as an active wrestler when he faces one of his biggest fans, Shawn Michaels at WrestleMania XXIV.

I am glad I did finally find out who Ric Flair is.