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AFTERNOON THOUGHTS: DIAMONDS ARE FOREVER AND SO IS RIC FLAIR, WWE'S NEW DVD DOCUMENTARY PROVES IT BEYOND ANY DOUBT

"Ric Flair was a wrestling God." ~ Harley Race

Ric Flair is without a doubt, the best in-ring professional wrestler to have ever competed in the sport of professional wrestling.  After watching the documentary portion of WWE's Definitive Ric Flair Collection, one can never be more sure of that fact, no matter what portion or era of Flair's career they may be personally the most familiar with.

It takes a lot for me to become truly engrossed in anything as I get older and more jaded in life, but the documentary portion of this DVD may be the single-most greatest start to finish production ever created by World Wrestling Entertainment's DVD division.  The documentary is so good, it only strengthens my belief that WWE should be focusing their efforts on putting one into the film festival circuit, because the level of work involved on the part of the WWE production team will likely go unheralded, and they deserve accolades for the quality of work they've turned in here.

We all know the story of Ric Flair.  He went from Minnesota to Charlotte, from one of the most grueling wrestling camps in the history of the United States to NWA World champion.  He went from the NWA to WCW to the WWF to WCW and back again to the WWE.  He traveled the world, spending more hours in the air, more minutes on the mat and more money overall than any of us could ever imagine.  He lived the life of a king and a champion, but even all the glory of being the limo-riding, jet-flying, son of gun couldn't prevent "The Nature Boy" from neglecting his family during his greatest heights or save from himself self-esteem issues as his life moved into its later years.

It's all covered here, in a way that old school fans can appreciate, while allowing younger viewers that only know the older Flair to fully understand the scope of his importance and accomplishments in the business.

Is it a perfect documentary?  Of course not.  You'll never be able to encapsulate multiple decades on any subject, especially one as rich and colorful as Flair, in a few short hours.  There were times where the viewer would obviously be left with questions, such as why Flair departed the WWF in 1993 to return to WCW if all he talked about was how much he hated WCW from the time Jim Herd took over the company.  It may have been time constraints, but it does leave a viewer who may not know the reason - Vince McMahon promising to let Flair out of his contract if he moved him out of a main event role, and then keeping his word when he made that call to drop Flair into the mid-card - wondering.

There are also some absences of important names from Flair's career, most notably his Flair's greatest in-ring opponent and current WWE Producer Ricky Steamboat, as well as Roddy Piper, Hulk Hogan and Sting.  In the case of the latter, it wasn't going to happen obviously, but in the case of the others, Steamboat's exclusion is inexcusable (and there has to be some story there) while it was disappointing not to see at least archived, older footage of Piper and Hogan, especially since Piper and Flair won the WWE Tag Team belts in 2006..  While Flair and Hogan are on opposite ends of many spectrums, he was the ying to Flair's yang during the height of the 1980s and might have added a different dimension to that picture.

Still, WWE assembled an excellent amount of interviews, both new - David Crockett, Shawn Michaels backstage after the Wrestlemania XXIV match, Flair's wife and children, Dusty Rhodes, JJ Dillon - and used older, archived comments from other past interviews - Jim Cornette, Barry Windham, Gene Okerlund, among others - to really paint a picture of Richard Fleihr the person and Ric Flair, the greatest World champion of them all.

The Producers also do an amazing job of scouring their archives of footage to include video of Verne Gagne's training camp, the wreckage of the infamous Mid-Atlantic plane crash, black and white footage of Buddy Rogers as NWA champion, clips of countless Flair promos and matches from numerous territories and Japan, personal photos of Flair through the years, a news piece on Flair with an infant David and much more.

It's hard to review the documentary and not give spoilers (as if we don't know how his career evolved and ended), but perhaps the most emotional chapter deals with the end of his career and the induction into the Hall of Fame.  Triple H discusses a crying Flair calling, moved over being inducted into the Hall, asking HHH to induct him.  For all the things said and written about Triple H, correct or not, the reality is that he pushed for Flair to be treated with the respect he deserved and was a big part of Flair finding himself again with all the esteem and confidence issues brought on by the Eric Bischoff WCW era.  In a moment where Triple H could have taken all the credit, he instead talked about the awe of being someone who grew up a Flair fan and was now in the amazing position of inducting his idol.  Shawn Michaels discusses trying to "paint a picture" of what Ric Flair's career was at Wrestlemania XXIV, a task he and Flair did a phenomenal job at. 

Flair, speaking before Mania weekend, says he's going to cry and it's going to be out of happiness.  He even admits he doesn't want to retire and doesn't know that he will, while his wife points out that he's just learning to be Richard Fliehr, not Ric Flair.  It brings the documentary all back to one point, that even the greatest of all time is still a mere mortal, like you or me, living his life and trying to find and better himself.  It's admirable and sobering all at once. It humanizes Fleihr the person without demeaning Flair the legend.

When the documentary ends and returns to the main menu, Sprach Zarathustra begins to play.  It's impossible not to have goosebumps hearing the first chords of the song, because that song, like professional wrestling, is forever intertwined with the one wrestler who sacrificed more, gave more, bled more and did more for this business we all love to death in our own way, Ric Flair. This DVD is awesome.

Mike Johnson can be reached at Mike@PWInsider.com.

The Definitive Ric Flair DVD Collection was officially released today and can be ordered from our good friends at www.highspots.com.