Nature Boy Ric Flair and The Four Horsemen vs. The American Dream Dusty Rhodes (Sep 1985 – Jul 1987)

Background

Ric Flair had been NWA World Heavyweight Champion since May 24, 1984, when he beat Kerry Von Erich in Yokosuka, Japan, and he would hold that reign for 793 days.[6] Dusty Rhodes was Jim Crockett Promotions' top babyface and, by the mid-1980s, its booker, the man who had helped originate Starrcade in 1983, named it, and put the matches together.[21]

They had been working each other since the 1970s. Their first singles match, in February 1975, ended in a double count-out; the next year Rhodes beat Flair for the Mid-Atlantic Heavyweight Championship only to have the decision reversed because Flair's feet were on the ropes.[26] Rhodes had held the world title twice before, for five days after beating Harley Race in Tampa on August 21, 1979, and for 88 days after beating Race again in Atlanta on June 21, 1981.[6] That second reign ended in Kansas City on September 17, 1981, when Flair beat him for the first world championship of his career.[6] In February 1983 Rhodes beat Flair for the belt under a hood as the Midnight Rider, then lost the decision when he refused to unmask.[26]

Rhodes had spent the early 1980s working mainly out of Championship Wrestling from Florida before moving to Crockett full time, and he arrived carrying the booking pencil as well as the top spot on the card.[21] Flair, by then, was a decade past the plane crash that sent him back to television slimmer and with longer hair, as the Nature Boy character that stuck, and he was working the NWA's full national schedule as a traveling champion.[19]

The company around them was changing fast. In 1985 Crockett took over the Atlanta-based Georgia territory after the WWF's move into that slot collapsed, which handed Crockett national cable exposure on TBS and a second home arena in the Omni.[17] Flair's supporting cast arrived in the same stretch: Arn Anderson came in from Continental Championship Wrestling and Tully Blanchard from Southwest Championship Wrestling, joining Ole Anderson and manager J.J. Dillon.[1]

Rhodes' own life had just changed too. His son Cody was born on June 30, 1985 in Charlotte, three months before the angle started, with Magnum T.A., Rhodes' closest on-screen ally at the time, as the boy's godfather.[22]

Build-up

The turn came at an Omni television taping on September 29, 1985. Flair had just beaten Nikita Koloff in a steel cage when Ivan and Nikita Koloff jumped him, and Rhodes ran down to make the save. Flair turned on him instead, Ole and Arn Anderson came in behind, and Flair broke Rhodes' left ankle with a diving knee drop before locking on the figure-four.[2] Rhodes vacated the NWA World Television Championship on October 19 as a result.[1]

He came back on the October 29 edition of Mid-Atlantic Championship Wrestling and, instead of promising revenge, talked about the country. "Hard times are when the textile workers around this country are out of work, they got 4 or 5 kids and can't pay their wages, can't buy their food," Rhodes said. "And hard times are when a man has worked at a job for thirty years, thirty years, and they give him a watch, kick him in the butt and say 'hey a computer took your place, daddy', that's hard times!"[3] He named the price of the feud plainly: "One way to hurt Ric Flair, is to take what he cherishes more than anything in the world and that's the World's Heavyweight title."[3]

Starrcade '85: The Gathering ran on November 28 across two buildings, Greensboro Coliseum and the Omni, the first Starrcade broadcast live from two locations by closed-circuit, for a combined 30,000.[2] The main event went 22:06 in Atlanta. Flair spent it working the ankle, which Rhodes protected all night in a plain white boot rather than his usual red-trimmed one, and both Andersons got involved before the finish.[9]

Rhodes got the pin. Senior referee Tommy Young had been knocked down, substitute referee Stu Shwartz made the count, and fans went home believing there was a new champion.[2] Young then reversed the decision, ruling it a Rhodes win by disqualification because of Arn Anderson's interference, which left the belt on Flair.[2]

The four men who had done the damage got their name in January 1986, in an interview slot they were filling on television. By Flair's account in his autobiography, Arn Anderson said: "The only time this much havoc had been wreaked by this few a number of people, you need to go all the way back to the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse!"[1] Dillon and Blanchard have both disputed the wording, saying the line came after an eight-team tag match and that Anderson said "The four horses, the four people that make things happen."[1]

Rhodes chased the belt through 1986 on the Great American Bash tour, a sixteen-date run of stadium and arena shows through July and early August.[7] Flair beat him in Washington and in Jacksonville before the tour reached Greensboro on July 26.[28] That night, in a sold-out 15,000-seat Greensboro Coliseum, they went 21:04 inside a steel cage with both men bleeding, and Flair went for a scoop slam that Rhodes leaned back into an inside cradle for the three.[7][8] Rhodes retained in a cage rematch at Fulton County Stadium in Atlanta on August 2, then lost the title back to Flair in St. Louis on August 9, fourteen days after winning it.[6][7]

The autumn changed the story twice. On October 14, driving home in heavy rain on Sardis Road in Charlotte, Magnum T.A. hydroplaned his Porsche into a telephone pole and exploded his C-4 and C-5 vertebrae, ending his career at 27.[11] Eleven days later, on the October 25 edition of World Championship Wrestling, the Horsemen followed Rhodes' red convertible to the Jim Crockett Promotions offices on Briarbend Drive, beat him down in the parking lot and tied his arms across a ring truck.[4][31] Dillon choked him with the bat while the Andersons held him, and then they broke his right hand and arm with it.[4] The footage was deliberately shot on a shaky handheld camera to look like a real recording.[5] Rhodes' cry as they lined up the swing, "Make it good!", became the most quoted line of the angle.[4]

Rhodes wrestled that weekend in Charlotte anyway, arm in a cast, with a cage match booked and no partner. He brought out Nikita Koloff, the promotion's top Russian heel, who had said on television that he respected Magnum T.A. and Dusty Rhodes.[12] Starrcade '86 on November 27 gave the Horsemen the win back: Blanchard beat Rhodes in 7:30 in a First Blood match for the NWA World Television Championship.[10]

The Horsemen reshuffled in early 1987. Lex Luger came in from Florida as an associate member in February and replaced Ole Anderson outright that March, after Blanchard and Dillon questioned Ole's commitment when he missed a show to watch his son wrestle in high school.[1] Rhodes, still booking, answered with a match built specifically to trap four men and a manager in one place. He had been watching Mad Max Beyond Thunderdome, and he put two rings inside a single roofed steel cage.[13]

The Matches

WarGames: The Match Beyond debuted on July 4, 1987 at the Omni in Atlanta, on the Great American Bash tour.[13] Rhodes, Nikita Koloff, Road Warrior Hawk, Road Warrior Animal and Paul Ellering faced Flair, Arn Anderson, Tully Blanchard, Lex Luger and J.J. Dillon.[13] Two rings sat side by side under one cage with a roof on it, competitors entered on a staggered clock, and there were no pinfalls, no count-outs and no disqualifications: the only ways to win were submission, surrender or knockout.[13]

The match ran about 22 minutes and played as a brawl rather than a wrestling match, with most of the offense coming off the cage itself.[29] The Horsemen won the coin toss for the entry advantage, and Rhodes and Arn Anderson started it.[38] Tully Blanchard came in second and the two Horsemen worked Rhodes' leg, Blanchard holding a figure-four on it until the clock ran out.[38]

Animal evened it up third, and Blanchard took the first of the bumps the match became known for, thrown clean over both sets of ropes into the far ring.[38] Flair entered next with the numbers back on his side, and both Rhodes and Animal were bleeding by then.[38] Nikita Koloff came in fifth and went to work on Arn Anderson's arm, and Flair started bleeding shortly after; Luger followed to answer Koloff, and he and Blanchard and Flair took turns dropping spike piledrivers on the Russian.[38]

Hawk's entry broke the structure of the match down entirely, and Paul Ellering came in last for Rhodes' side.[38] He brought one of the Road Warriors' spiked wrist gauntlets in with him and used it to open Dillon's forehead.[38] The Warriors then set up the Doomsday Device, with Dillon on Animal's shoulders and Hawk coming off the top.

It did not land cleanly. Dillon came down on his right arm and shoulder and separated the shoulder for real, and the Warriors kept working him over until he submitted.[14][15] "It didn't break it, but I was off six weeks," Dillon said later, describing it as the worst injury of his career and choosing immobilization over surgery. "I still have hump up in my collarbone."[15]

That took Dillon out of the rematch, so the Horsemen replaced him with a masked wrestler called War Machine, played by the man later known as Big Boss Man.[13] The second WarGames ran on July 31 at the Orange Bowl in Miami, same teams otherwise.[13] Ellering came in carrying one of the Road Warriors' spiked wristbands and passed it to Animal, who ground the spikes into War Machine's masked face until he surrendered.[13][14]

The Horsemen never won a WarGames against Rhodes' teams. They lost every one they wrestled against him across 1987 and 1988.[12][26]

Aftermath

Dillon was out six weeks with the shoulder.[15] Luger was pushed out of the Horsemen late in 1987 after failing to hold the NWA United States Heavyweight Championship, and Barry Windham replaced him in April 1988 by turning on his own tag team partner.[1][35]

Starrcade '87: Chi-Town Heat moved out of Greensboro to the UIC Pavilion in Chicago on November 26, 1987, and was the NWA's first pay-per-view.[16] Rhodes beat Luger in a steel cage in 16:28 to take the United States Championship, and Flair beat Ron Garvin in 17:38 in the main event to start his sixth world title reign.[16] The WWF ran Survivor Series the same night and told cable systems that carrying Starrcade would cost them WrestleMania IV; almost all of them backed down, only four carried the show, and Starrcade drew roughly 20,000 buys for a 3.3 buyrate against Survivor Series' 7.0.[16][17]

Rhodes won the Bunkhouse Stampede cage match at the Nassau Veterans Memorial Coliseum on January 24, 1988 in front of 6,000, eliminating The Barbarian last with two bionic elbows as the two of them climbed the cage.[24] It was his third straight win in the format, and it kept him in a Horsemen program through the spring and summer.[24]

The original Horsemen came apart that September. Anderson and Blanchard gave Crockett their notice over money, the last straw being the discovery that after the company's first pay-per-view their manager had been paid three times what the two-time world tag team champions got.[35] They debuted in the WWF as the Brain Busters under Bobby Heenan in late October 1988.[35]

Rhodes' own run in the company ended at the other end of that year. He was fired after Starrcade '88, held on November 26, 1988, when Road Warrior Animal pulled a spike from his shoulder pad and opened up Rhodes' eye on camera, against the no-blood policy Turner Broadcasting had imposed after taking over.[21]

He turned up in the WWF on June 3, 1989 in vignettes as a yellow polka-dotted "common man" working jobs as a plumber, a butcher's apprentice and a gas station attendant, a presentation some read as an attempt to humiliate the man most identified with the opposition.[21] Juanita Wright started appearing at ringside that October and was introduced as his manager Sapphire, and the two of them beat Randy Savage and Sensational Queen Sherri at WrestleMania VI in the WWF's first mixed tag team match.[21] He left for a return to WCW as head booker at the start of the next decade.[21] Flair kept the NWA title into 1989 and stayed with the company through the Turner years.[21][26]

Behind the Scenes

The complaint inside the dressing room was that the booker kept winning. Tony Schiavone, who called the shows, has said the Horsemen brought it to him directly: "The Horsemen were always very vocal to me and upset about Dusty continuing to put himself over, Tully being the one that was the most vocal."[18] Schiavone's own reading was that it did not run deep. He described watching Flair and Rhodes travel together on private planes and hug and thank each other after matches, and said the same of Blanchard and Arn Anderson.[18]

"So they may have bitched about it and there may have been some heat out there," Schiavone said. "But I think in effect they were all teammates and they all loved each other for that purpose... But you know what? We were making money back then."[18]

Jim Cornette, who worked for Crockett through the whole run, has been more pointed about the booking than about the self-pushing. He credits Rhodes with pairing talent that drew together and criticizes the lack of restraint: the reversed-decision finish, the one Rhodes is named after, got used often enough that newsletters and cable coverage exposed the pattern and the audience learned to see it coming.[19] Cornette has also said the collapse that followed was mostly Crockett chasing Vince McMahon and expanding faster than the company's structure could carry, ending roughly two million dollars in debt after buying the UWF, rather than anything Rhodes booked.[19] The UWF purchase did reshape the roster Rhodes was booking against the Horsemen in 1987, bringing in Jim Ross, Sting, Steve Williams and Eddie Gilbert.[27]

Asked about the finish in a shoot interview years later, Rhodes did not defend it so much as accept the credit. He said he liked it and was proud to be associated with a finish forever, and the interviewer's note was that the actual question got dodged.[23] In the same interview he called Flair "the ultimate flim-flam man," and said Magnum T.A. had more charisma than Hulk Hogan.[23]

The parking lot angle has its own explanation from the man who set it up. J.J. Dillon has said the "Make it good!" line was not Rhodes directing traffic on camera, as critics assumed, but Rhodes borrowing from a movie: "Dusty was somebody who loved the movies... and he loved seeing moments in a movie and re-creating those moments."[4]

The moment was from One Eyed Jacks, where Marlon Brando's character, tied up, tells his captor "You better kill me" before his gun hand is destroyed.[4] Blanchard's own summary of the segment was simpler: "The thing that a lot of people talk about is when we attacked Dusty in the parking lot. That was a great angle."[20]

Magnum T.A.'s crash rewrote the second half of the story. He had been the one being groomed to take the world title off Flair, and he was booked opposite Flair at Starrcade '86 when the accident happened; Nikita Koloff went into that main event instead, and it ended in a double disqualification at 20:00.[10][11] Turning Koloff babyface to fill Magnum's spot alongside Rhodes was Rhodes' own call as booker.[11]

The relationship underneath all of it started with Flair as the junior partner. "All I wanted to be in 1972 was Rambling Ricky Rhodes," Flair wrote after Rhodes' death. "The Dream told me 'you can make it on your own.' He mentored me and taught me how to be a star."[25] Flair's own assessment of what the Horsemen became at their peak, with the group appearing in 128 syndicated markets: "We were like The Beatles, Elvis, and The Rolling Stones all wrapped into one."[20]

Legacy

The business the feud ran on was real. Jim Crockett Promotions sold two million tickets in 1986, a figure taken from contemporaneous Wrestling Observer reporting, more than WWE has sold in any year since 2002.[17] The Greensboro title change on July 26, 1986 sold out the building at 15,000, and Starrcade '85 drew a combined 30,000 across two arenas.[2][7]

The Hard Times promo outlived everything else in the feud. Retrospectives marking its fortieth anniversary in 2025 kept returning to the same three minutes, and to the moment inside them where Rhodes reaches toward the camera and asks the people at home to put a hand against the screen.[34] The line that carried it was the one about a man getting a watch and a kick in the butt after thirty years, delivered by a wrestler explaining why he wanted a title shot.[3]

The Four Horsemen went into the WWE Hall of Fame as a group on April 2, 2012, with Flair, Arn Anderson, Tully Blanchard, Barry Windham and J.J. Dillon inducted together.[33] At their peak against Rhodes the group was appearing in 128 syndicated markets across the country.[20]

WarGames outlived the promotion that invented it. Rhodes built it in 1987 to solve one specific problem, four Horsemen and a manager who could not be caught one at a time, and WWE brought the match back at NXT TakeOver: WarGames in 2017 and later moved it to Survivor Series, where it is now the show's headline attraction.[13][14]

Rhodes was inducted into the WWE Hall of Fame on March 31, 2007 at the Fox Theatre in Detroit by his sons Cody and Dustin, and asked Flair and Arn Anderson to come out and make him a Horseman during the speech.[21][37] After retiring from the ring in 2010 he worked as a backstage booker and producer in WWE's NXT developmental system.[21] He died on June 11, 2015 at 69.[21] WWE announced the Dusty Rhodes Tag Team Classic at NXT TakeOver: Brooklyn that August, modeled on the Crockett Cup tournaments he had created and wrestled in during the 1980s; Finn Bálor and Samoa Joe won the first one on October 7, 2015.[36] Flair's statement that day read: "Today I lost one of my greatest opponents and greatest friends. He was the definition of heart and soul and I'm honored to have shared the ring with him countless times. He became the 'American Dream' because wrestling needed a hero they could respect, and he was the man for the job. Dusty Rhodes, I will miss you my mentor and friend."[25]

See Also

Sources & Further Listening

1. The Four Horsemen (professional wrestling) — Wikipedia. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Four_Horsemen_(professional_wrestling)
2. Starrcade '85: The Gathering — Wikipedia. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Starrcade_%2785:_The_Gathering
3. "Dusty Rhodes: 'He put hard times on Dusty Rhodes and his family!'" (full promo transcript) — Speakola. https://speakola.com/sports/dusty-rhodes-hard-times-ric-flair-1985
4. "Make It Good: Dusty Rhodes channels his inner Marlon Brando" — Mid-Atlantic Gateway. https://www.midatlanticgateway.com/2017/09/make-it-good-rhodes-channels-brando.html
5. "Dusty Rhodes, The Four Horsemen, and a broken arm" — Russell Franklin. https://russellfranklin.substack.com/p/dusty-rhodes-the-four-horsemen-and
6. List of NWA World Heavyweight Champions — Wikipedia. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_NWA_World_Heavyweight_Champions
7. "Great American Bash Tour — 1986 Results" — The History of WWE. https://thehistoryofwwe.com/great-american-bash-tour-1986/
8. "Ric Flair vs Dusty Rhodes (NWA, 7-26-1986)" — Tape Machines Are Rolling. https://tapemachinesarerolling.wordpress.com/2023/10/11/ric-flair-vs-dusty-rhodes-nwa-7-26-1986/
9. "Ric Flair vs Dusty Rhodes (NWA, 11-28-1985)" — Tape Machines Are Rolling. https://tapemachinesarerolling.wordpress.com/2023/05/04/ric-flair-vs-dusty-rhodes-nwa-11-28-1985/
10. Starrcade '86: Night of the Skywalkers — Wikipedia. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Starrcade_%2786:_The_Skywalkers
11. Magnum T. A. — Wikipedia. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Magnum_T._A.
12. The Super Powers — Wikipedia. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Super_Powers
13. WarGames match — Wikipedia. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/WarGames_match
14. "The complete history of WarGames" — WWE.com. https://www.wwe.com/classics/complete-history-wargames
15. "MOONEYHAM COLUMN: Pro wrestling's 'Manager of Champions' J.J. Dillon enjoyed storybook career" — The Post and Courier. https://www.postandcourier.com/staff/mike_mooneyham/mooneyham-column-pro-wrestling-s-manager-of-champions-j-j-dillon-enjoyed-storybook-career/article_cf467b09-8b02-5171-a147-82eed50974c0.html
16. Starrcade '87: Chi-Town Heat — Wikipedia. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Starrcade_%2787:_Chi-Town_Heat
17. "Starrcade vs. Survivor Series: The Fight for Thanksgiving That Changed Wrestling" (business figures sourced to Wrestling Observer back issues) — Bleacher Report. https://bleacherreport.com/articles/1868129-starrcade-vs-survivor-series-the-fight-for-thanksgiving-that-changed-wrestling
18. "Tony Schiavone On 4 Horsemen Holding Resentment Toward Dusty Rhodes" (What Happened When, Jun 19, 2017) — Still Real to Us. https://stillrealtous.com/tony-schiavone-4-horsemen-holding-resentment-dusty-rhodes/
19. "Highspots Presents: Crockett Diaries with Jim Cornette" — Scott's Blog of Doom. https://www.blogofdoom.com/2016/07/21/highspots-presents-crockett-diaries-with-jim-cornette/
20. "The Four Horsemen — Their Story, In Their Own Words" — Pro Wrestling Stories. https://prowrestlingstories.com/pro-wrestling-stories/the-four-horsemen/
21. Dusty Rhodes — Wikipedia. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dusty_Rhodes
22. Cody Rhodes — Wikipedia. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cody_Rhodes
23. "The SmarK Rant for RF Shoot Interview with Dusty Rhodes" — Scott's Blog of Doom. https://www.blogofdoom.com/rant/repost-rf-shoot-interview-with-dusty/
24. Bunkhouse Stampede (1988) — Wikipedia. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bunkhouse_Stampede_(1988)
25. "Ric Flair pays tribute to Dusty Rhodes" — Wrestling-Online. https://www.wrestling-online.com/wwe/ric-flair-pays-tribute-to-dusty-rhodes/
26. "Ric Flair vs. Dusty Rhodes: 10 Things Fans Forget About Their Feud" — TheSportster. https://www.thesportster.com/wrestling/ric-flair-dusty-rhodes-feud-things-fans-forget/
27. "Year in Review: Jim Crockett Promotions in 1987" — Happy Wrestling Land. https://happywrestlingland.com/2020/12/10/year-in-review-jim-crockett-promotions-in-1987/
28. "30th Anniversary of Dusty's Final World Title Win" — Mid-Atlantic Gateway. https://www.midatlanticgateway.com/2016/07/dusty-nwa-30th.html
29. "Inaugural War Games Match, NWA The Great American Bash 1987" — Hammy Reviews. https://hammyreviews.wordpress.com/2022/11/25/125-the-road-warriors-dusty-rhodes-nikita-koloff-and-paul-ellering-vs-the-four-horsemen-ric-flair-arn-anderson-lex-luger-and-tully-blanchard-and-j-j-dillon-inaugural-war-games-match-nwa-the/
30. "HARD TIMES: Dusty Rhodes' greatest promo: Mid-Atlantic Wrestling, Oct. 29, 1985" — YouTube (WWE Vault). https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7SSnkFQuao8
31. "FULL EPISODE: Four Horsemen ambush Dusty Rhodes in parking lot: WCW, Oct. 25, 1986" — YouTube (WCW). https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JIppsqRpGgo
32. "FULL MATCH: Team Dusty and Horsemen clash in WarGames rematch: Great American Bash 1987" — YouTube (WCW). https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gbS5DeqlXrk
33. "The Four Horsemen get inducted into WWE's Hall of Fame: April 2, 2012" — WWE.com. https://www.wwe.com/videos/the-four-horsemen-get-inducted-into-wwe-s-hall-of-fame-april-2-2012
34. "Dusty Rhodes' 'Hard Times' promo still resonates 40 years later" (Oct 31, 2025) — Wrestling Headlines. https://wrestlingheadlines.com/dusty-rhodes-hard-times-promo-still-resonates-40-years-later/
35. Brain Busters — Wikipedia. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brain_Busters
36. Dusty Rhodes Tag Team Classic — Wikipedia. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dusty_Rhodes_Tag_Team_Classic
37. WWE Hall of Fame (2007) — Wikipedia. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/WWE_Hall_of_Fame_(2007)
38. "War Games I, JCP (7/4/1987)" — More Songs About Bill Ding(s) & Rude. https://oldstyleupintotheshower.wordpress.com/2018/02/04/war-games-i-jcp-7-4-1987/

Further Listening

• Ric Flair: To Be the Man (Ric Flair's autobiography) — Flair's account of the Horsemen's naming and his long relationship with Rhodes
• Wrestlers Are Like Seagulls: From McMahon to McMahon (J.J. Dillon's autobiography) — the manager's side of the parking lot angle and the WarGames injury
• What Happened When with Tony Schiavone — the announcer's recollections of Horsemen dressing-room complaints about Dusty's booking
• Highspots: Crockett Diaries with Jim Cornette — booking-committee context on the Dusty finish and Crockett's expansion
• Kayfabe Commentaries: Timeline series on 1985–1987 Jim Crockett Promotions — year-by-year walkthroughs of the Horsemen era