Daily Dirt: We’ll never see another high flyin’ and limousine ridin’ champion like The Nature Boy

Daily Dirt for Wednesday, May 1, 2024

No one had a better entrance to the ring than The Nature Boy. And those robes … oh my … Welcome to today’s three thoughts that make up Vol. 936 of The Daily Dirt.

1. What’s always been the greatest appeal of professional “wrestling?” It’s not the golden boys, it’s the “heels” — the guys we love to hate. The bastards! 

The golden boys can only be the golden boys when there’s a heel to for them to defeat and save the free world. Would we have really cared that much about Hulk Hogan if he had not repeatedly turned back the Iron Sheik and saved mankind in the process?

With that in mind, here’s my three greatest heels of the squared circle:

1. Ric “The Nature Boy” Flair: Diamonds are forever, and so is The Nature Boy. No one ever personified the high-flyin’ and limousine-ridin’ lifestyle better than this guy. But be honest — it was hard not to kind of like “The Dirtiest Player in the Game.” That’s what made him so great, not to mention popular. No wonder he was a 16-time (or 21-time, depending on your championship parameters) world title holder. And no one, repeat NO ONE, could work a microphone like The Nature Boy. We’ll never see another pro wrestler like Ric Flair.

2. “Rowdy” Roddy Piper: As good as Flair was in front of a TV audience and camera, Rowdy Roddy was even better, which only helped build his image. At the height of his popularity, “Piper’s Pit” was must-see TV during the weekly pro wrestling telecasts. Piper was so good outside the ring that what he did inside the ropes was almost secondary. Then there were the bagpipes, but we’ll get to that schtick on another day.

3. The Iron Sheik: Easily the most despised wrestler of his time, the Sheik, whose real name was Hossein Khosrow Ali Vaziri, was actually from Iran. That only made the storylines even better. The Sheik held the WWF title for a brief time in 1983.

2. The medal winners held steady for another week in the Great Plate Debate of 2024, the third annual competition for the most impressive vanity license plates in West-Central Illinois and Northeast Missouri.

Our current best of the best:

• Gold medal: CO XIST 
• Silver medal: S-EVAN
• Bronze medal: US-MALE

Here’s the week’s top submissions. They might not have earned a medal, but they made us smile:

• 7 ARTY
• HALO 52
• U BABE 1
• US BOX 1
• 9 DUES
• H KID 1

3. We’re coming up on the silver anniversary of what may be the single greatest feat by a college (or MLB) hitter. It was 25 years ago this month (May 9, to be exact) when Marshall McDougal of Florida State led the Seminoles past Maryland 26-2.

What exactly did McDougal do? Well, he:

• Walloped 6 home runs — in consecutive at-bats.
• Finished with 7 hits.
• Had 16 RBIs.
• Collected 25 total bases.

All were — and remain — NCAA records.

McDougal, who batted .419 that season, was later drafted by the Texas Rangers with the ninth pick in the 2002 draft. He played in 11 MLB games in 2005. He was 3-for-18 with a double during his one and only cup of coffee in MLB.

Steve Thought O’ The Day
How great was McDougal’s feat? Well, consider that only 18 MLB players have ever hit FOUR homers in a game, and five of those guys are Hall of Famers.

Steve Eighinger writes daily for Muddy River News. His favorite wrestler as a kid was Dusty Rhodes because he was “a bleeder.” Steve’s body was similarly shaped to Dusty’s as well.