I agree with you that it didn’t look horrible.
Lance has much better insight than I do, but IMO, nothing screamed, “obvious.”
I think that, compared to a lot of Flair’s other matches from that time, there was a noticeable difference.
Also, Scotty Steiner was a very good worker, and I’m confident that Flair could have had a much better match with him, but I don’t know if that’s incontrovertible evidence of sabotage.
You also bring up a good point that Flair was, indeed, having some issues in his personal & professional lives at this time, and it’s quite conceivable that he was just having a bad night.
Although, I don’t think that Steiner was out of line in his speculation.
As far as Ric’s locker room reputation - it sounds as if the people who liked him LOVED him, but the ones who weren’t fond of him were quite critical and vocal in their disapproval.
Bret told a funny story about the boys returning to the hotel after partying - this was maybe the week before the WWF’s new stringent drug testing policy took effect.
They wanted to carry the party over to Flair’s luxury suite, but he was still out on the town.
McMahon himself (who was also living it up one last time with the boys) demanded the key from the front desk.
He and everyone else marched up to Flair’s room, raded the bar, passed around joints, and many took turns pissing in Ric’s bed - including VINCE.
“I remember Hercules and Curt laughing as thety hosed it down, and for some reason, I thought nobody would have done this to Harley Race!”
