WWE Hall of Famer Ric Flair has responded to recent comments made by UFC commentator Joe Rogan who questioned the use of Flair’s Figure Four submission hold saying that it made Flair vulnerable in a real fight.
The move brought many great victories for the two-time WWE Hall of Famer and has since been parodied and adopted by other performers, including The Miz and Jay Lethal. Lethal famously used the move against Flair during their hilarious 2010 feud in TNA.
Ric Flair Says He Copied Buddy Rogers
Despite the rewards the move brought to Ric Flair, not everyone is a fan; Joe Rogan certainly isn’t. In fact, Rogan has heavily slammed the move during a recent edition of the Joe Rogan Experience. The episode, featuring the Grammy Award-winning Rick Rubin, saw Rogan state how it “doesn’t work” and will be seen in a jiu-jitsu competition:
“A bunch of [pro] wrestlers got mad at me…I was trying to explain how dumb a Figure Four Leglock was because I was like he was literally giving up an inside heel hook.
[An] Inside heel hook is one of the most devastating submission techniques because once someone gets it the time you have to tap is so small before your knee gets ripped apart and so, a Figure-four leg lock you’ll never see in a jiu-jitsu competition. It doesn’t work. It’s funny in that regard, you know, you are doing this thing but this thing in the real world is the worst thing you do.”
Now speaking to TMZ Sports, Ric Flair has issued his response to Rogan’s controversial remarks:
“Well I learned it from somebody else who was tougher than me and Joe Rogan. So you can talk to Jack Briscoe who’s dead in heaven or Buddy Rogers. It’s legitimate, it’s a very legitimate move if you get it on somebody right. […] I respect Joe Rogan, he’s always been respectful to me. You know what it is? It’s a good time in my life to be a topic of conversation in everybody’s world every day.”
“[On why Flair picked the move] I was patterning myself on a guy named Buddy Rogers. I was a copycat ok but like my friend Harley Race would say ‘Flair took Rogers to another level.”
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