Center Stage Chronicles Ep. #27: July 1991

**Kris Zellner** (0:30)
Hello, everyone, and welcome back to Center Stage Chronicles, episode number 28 I'm Kris Zellner, and we got quite the show for you this week, folks.
This is Ric Flair's Waterloo. We've been building up to this, and we finally here. But before we get into all that, I'm always honored to be joined by my dear personal friends on this show. First off, my birthday brother, which as we record this, my birthday is exactly one week from today. So always great to share that day with you, my brother. And the man who has gained the new set of fame lately from his appearance on Dark Side of the Ring, we are joined by the one, the only Rob Naylor, a wrestling historian, Rob Naylor. Look at that.

**Rob Naylor** (1:21)
Thank you. I promise I didn't tell them I was a wrestling historian. I think after I told them for like 25 minutes, the entire history of the Indies in 2001 and 2002, they probably just came to that conclusion. But no, I-

**Kris Zellner** (1:32)
It's 25 years ago. That's history.

**Rob Naylor** (1:35)
That is true.
Guy who watches a lot of wrestling, Steve Yeoh is a historian. There's other stories, but very nice of them to say. It was a nice time. I had a nice trip to Atlanta. I wish I could have visited Kris, but it didn't happen.

**Kris Zellner** (1:48)
Yeah, he was on a short trip that time.

**Rob Naylor** (1:52)
Yeah, just in and out of there. But that was last September, by the way. So it was a while ago. So I had to keep- I kept on the raft. I told maybe like four or five people. But it's kind of fun just to see how many people were like, what the fuck are you? Why are you all- My best friend from childhood, me and my best friend, we met in fifth grade when I saw some dipshit across the schoolyard beating his chest and running around like an idiot after the ultimate warrior beat a donkey talk man the night before at SummerSlam. So I haven't talked to my one friend in a while and he hit me up. He goes, I was just watching bare-knuckle boxing. I swear to God you were on TV.
I go, yeah, I'm going to be on this thing. It'll be on Tuesday.
So yeah, it was fine. It's all good. Everyone I dealt with was very nice and I had a nice trip to Atlanta. So thank you for that. But yeah, I'm excited for this month, July 1991 and WCW. It's going to be a big one.

**Kris Zellner** (2:46)
Yeah, because it's the bridge to major, major, major change is going to be coming up after that. So yeah, it's going to be a great show. But before we get into it, we're also joined by another one of our dear close personal friends, the hardest working man on the wrestling internet, the man behind the wrestling playlist newsletter, the one, the only Charles. Charles, welcome back.

**Charles** (3:09)
Thanks, Chris. How are you doing?

**Kris Zellner** (3:12)
Good, good, good. Yeah, I mean, this is an interesting show. We ended last month with the news of Ric Flair's impending departure, because basically everything was breaking down right before July 1st. Well, here we are, July 1st, 1991
Ric Flair was fired by WCW on July 1st, effective immediately, after both sides failed to reach an agreement on a contract extension, which would be from June 1st, 1992 through May 31st, 1994
The official word was faxed Monday afternoon by Jim Hurd to Flair's attorney, Dennis Guffrey, in Charlotte, that Flair's contract was being terminated effective August 1st, 1991 Flair was scheduled to drop the WCW Worldweight title to Barry Windham on July 1st, in Macon, Georgia. A plan that was revised, which decided upon within the past week that had been the subject of many behind the scenes problems. WCW officials weren't expecting Flair to show up to Macon. He was originally scheduled to be on vacation until the July 3rd show at the Meadowlands, but was given the word last week to be in Macon. The revised plan was for Windham to defend the title against Lex Luger in Baltimore, with Windham's title victory airing on TBS either this coming Saturday night or the day before the Baltimore show. It was announced in Macon, which airs on television on July 6th, basically the truth, that Flair had been stripped of the title due to contractual problems and the top two contenders, Windham and Luger, would wrestle for the held up title on July 14th at the Bash in Baltimore inside a steel cage. This marks the first time in the 43-year history of the NWA slash WCW that the World Heavyweight title did not change hands in the ring. Now, the original plan was for Flair to drop the title to Luger in Baltimore. The hang up was that two sides haven't been able to come to terms on a contract extension that had been verbally agreed upon seemingly forever. WCW offered Flair $350,000 a year, which would cut his current salary in half, or even slightly more than half. According to Flair, as quoted in the Miami Herald on July 3rd, WCW asked Flair to have his salary cut in half effective immediately. Other reports that WCW and Flair had agreed to terminate his existing contract and sign a new contract at $350,000 a year, but TBS sources said that this agreement was over the extension and that no major cut in pay was requested for the period covered by the current contract which was set to expire on May 31st, 1992