10 Things Fans Should Know About The Ric Flair Vs. Vader WCW Rivalry

After dominating in Japan, Big Van Vader arrived in World Championship Wrestling in 1991, and soon entered an incredible rivalry with the company’s top babyface, Sting, and was able to hold the WCW World Title three times. But during his third reign, he found himself feuding with another icon of the promotion: Ric Flair.

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Backed by Flair’s old rival, former NWA World Champion Harley Race, Vader clashed with The Nature Boy in several huge matches, including one at Starrcade. Fans might not know much about this feud, as it’s overshadowed by the Vader/Sting storyline, so let’s take a look at their entire rivalry, as well as their brief partnership.

10 Ric Flair First Challenged For The World Title At Clash Of The Champions

The below Saturday Night match was taped beforehand, but the first time most fans ever saw Ric Flair wrestle Big Van Vader was at the November 1993 special Clash of the Champions 25. At this point, Vader was already in his third reign with the World Title, with Flair challenging the monster heel for the belt. The Nature Boy didn’t get the title, but did get a disqualification win over Vader due to the champ attacking the referee.

9 Sid Was Supposed To Be Vader’s Rival

While Ric Flair became the big rival for Vader to close out 1993, these weren’t originally WCW’s plans. Instead, the challenger for Vader was going to be Sid Vicious, who earlier that year had been teaming with Vader as the Masters of the Powerbomb but ended up turning babyface in the fall. However, in late October, Vicious and Arn Anderson had an altercation while on tour in England that involved multiple stab wounds on each man’s behalf. Ultimately, Sid was fired from WCW, with Flair taking his spot as Vader’s rival.

8 A Tag Match Followed Their Clash Of The Champions Bout

Days after their Clash of the Champions title match, Ric Flair and Vader met in the ring again on an episode of WCW Saturday Night, this time in a tag match. Taking place just after Sid Vicious was taken out by Vader and thus written off of television, the bout saw Flair teaming with his Four Horsemen partner Arn Anderson against Vader and Steve Austin.

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An entertaining forgotten gem, this intense bout goes half an hour but basically ends in a No Contest due to Saturday Night running out of time.

7 Flair Put His Career On The Line To Challenge Vader

It was at WCW’s BattleBowl pay-per-view in late November 1993 that Ric Flair was named the challenger to Big Van Vader’s World Title at Starrcade the following month. However, it didn’t happen in the ring, but in a pre-taped press conference segment where Flair interrupted the proceedings to officially offer a challenge to Vader. The champion didn’t accept the challenge at first, but Flair sweetened the deal by saying he would retire if Vader won, which was enough to get him to agree.

6 Vader Injured Flair At BattleBowl ‘93

The BattleBowl pay-per-view involved a series of tag team matches, where the winners would be entered into a battle royal in the main event. Both Ric Flair and Vader — along with their respective tag team partners, Steve Austin and Cactus Jack — made it into the battle royal. Vader would ultimately win the bout, but also gained an advantage over Flair by injuring him outside the ring. This caused Flair to be deemed medically unfit to continue the match, and was thus eliminated from the bout.

5 Flair Beat Vader At Starrcade ‘93

Given that Ric Flair’s career was on the line, the high-stakes World Title match against Big Van Vader was the obvious choice to main event WCW’s biggest show of the year, Starrcade ‘93. Vader spent much of the bout dominating Flair, who used his handful of openings to work the champion’s leg. After a little more than 21 minutes, Flair was able to trip Vader, using his momentum to execute a successful roll-up pin to win not only the match, but the WCW World Title.

4 Vader Injured Flair Again At Clash Of The Champions 26

In the weeks after Ric Flair beat Vader for the title, a rematch was signed for February’s SuperBrawl 4. Before that, however, Flair and Sting paired up for an elimination tag team match against Vader and Rick Rude, during which Vader injured Flair again and the two men were disqualified from the match.

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The kayfabe injury caused WCW management to cancel the SuperBrawl, but Flair urged them to hold the match as planned — despite his injuries — after Vader staged an attack on the next contender to the belt, Ricky Steamboat.

3 Flair Retained The Belt Against Vader In The ThunderCage

The SuperBrawl 4 title match between Ric Flair and Vader was contested in the ThunderCage, a special type of cage match where the roof was curved inward to prevent anyone from climbing in or out. With the former Big Bossman — billed as “The Boss” — the bout involves not only interference from Vader’s manager, Harley Race, but also Vader attacking The Boss. In the end, Flair managed to put Vader in the Figure Four Leglock while The Boss called the match in Flair’s favor.

2 Later Teamed Up Against Hulk Hogan

By early 1995, Ric Flair had turned heel and functioned as a manager for Vader following the departure of Harley Race. From there, Vader got into a feud with the new WCW World Champion, Hulk Hogan, with Flair backing up the big man against The Hulkster. However, Flair would cost Vader two big matches against Hogan, first by interfering and causing a DQ finish in their title match at SuperBrawl 5. Then came the infamously nonsensical finish at Uncensored ‘95 where Hogan beat Vader in a non-title Strap Match by dragging Ric Flair across all four corners of the ring.

1 Their Last Encounter Was A Handicap Match

After Vader once again failed to beat Hulk Hogan at Bash at the Beach ‘95, both Vader and Ric Flair had enough of one another’s shortcomings and began to feud with one another instead. This would lead to their last match against one another, a two-on-one handicap match at Clash of the Champions 31, wherein the now-babyface Vader took on Flair and Arn Anderson. In this eight-minute affair, Vader would emerge the winner after powerbombing Anderson for a three-count.