Legislators tag-team proposal for professional wrestling museum
Andre the Giant (left) a French-born wrestler whose ashes were spread on his 160-acre ranch in Ellerbe, North Carolina, poses with fellow Tar Heel State grappler Ric Flair, probably in the early 1980s. @RicFlairNatrBoy/X photo
North Carolina lawmakers are stepping into the ring with a $500,000 proposal to grapple with the idea of establishing a professional wrestling museum, hoping to pin down the state’s rich sports entertainment history before the final bell rings on funding.
“The idea actually originated a few years ago based on my experience growing up in Fayetteville, watching professional wrestling and recognizing that we actually don’t have a museum or a place to visit that reflects the long and deep history of professional wrestling in the state of North Carolina,” said Sen. Jay Chaudhuri (D-Wake).
In an era of extreme political polarization and divisiveness, Chaudhuri was able to reach across the aisle and tap two veteran senators, Sen. Danny Britt (R-Robeson) and Sen. Ralph Hise (R-Mitchell) who also represents a portion of Haywood County. Chaudhuri said they were eager to support the bill.
“All three of us share a love for professional wrestling, so I did not have to engage in the claw or figure-four to get them on board,” he said.
Senate bill 404, titled the “RIC FLAIR Act,” was filed in the General Assembly on March 24. The bill proposes an appropriation of $500,000 to the Department of Natural and Cultural Resources to study the feasibility of establishing a professional wrestling museum in the state. The department is required to report its findings and recommendations to the joint legislative oversight committee on agriculture and natural and economic resources by July 1, 2026. As of March 25, the bill had been re-referred to the committee on appropriations/base budget.
The title is, of course, not only a nod to one of North Carolina’s favorite grapplers but is also a clever acronym that implores the state to “Remember Iconic Combatants through Fostering Learning, Awareness and Interest in Rassling.”
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A larger-than-life personality known as much for his signature figure-four leglock as for his outrageous, self-aggrandizing monologues, Flair had a 50-year career that netted him at least 16 world championships in the WWE, the NWA and the WCW.
Originally from Minnesota, Flair began wrestling in 1971 as part of the legendary Verne Gagne’s American Wrestling Association stable, which at the time also included such luminaries as “Jumpin’” Jim Brunzell, Greg Gagne, Ken Patera and the Iron Sheik. In 1974, Flair left the AWA for Jim Crockett’s NWA, then based in North Carolina. Over the ensuing decades, fans in Charlotte, Greenville, High Point and Raleigh were treated to regular shows that established North Carolina as an important magnet for wrestling afficionados, and for wrestlers like Flair.
Advertisements in Western North Carolina media also show regular wrestling shows in Haywood and Buncombe counties from the early 1970s through the late 1980s, including at the Asheville Civic Center, Waynesville Junior High and the Canton YMCA — where Flair battled Patera and arch-rival Paul Jones.
Other ads show a who’s who of future wrestling superstars fighting in these Haywood County matches, including “Haystack” Calhoun, Ivan Koloff, Jay Youngblood, “Rowdy” Roddy Piper and Randy Poffo, who would later become known as “Macho Man” Randy Savage.
Ric Savage, no relation, is a Sylva native and Army veteran who in the 1990s wrestled for pretty much every independent organization on the east coast at one time or another, in cluding ECW, WCW, NWA and the USWA out of Memphis, Tennessee.
“There’s so many places that are really deep in wrestling culture, and North Carolina is one of them because of Jim Crockett promotions being based out of Charlotte,” Savage said. “That’s where Ric Flair came up, that’s where the Rock ‘n’ Roll Express came up, the Andersons, Tully Blanchard. When you look back now, some of the greatest in-ring and microphone technicians of all time came out of the NWA, came out of that Charlotte territory. You could make an argument that Charlotte would be one of the four or five places in the country that would make absolute sense to put a museum dedicated to the professional wrestling business.”
An advertisement in the June 25, 1981, issue of the Waynesville Mountaineer shows a professional wrestling event, including Ric Flair, scheduled for the Waynesville Junior High School. The Mountaineer photo
Savage thinks that if the museum’s collections had a wide enough scope, perhaps concentrating on the global phenomenon while paying special respect to North Carolina’s place in it, a museum could be a huge boost to tourism.
“We get tunnel vision thinking it’s just the USA. Wrestling is huge all over the planet, in Japan, in Europe, England. It would become a destination thing for wrestling fans from all over the world,” said Savage.
Chaudhuri said he’s not married to the idea of locating the museum in Charlotte and that many parts of the state could benefit from the tourism spending that would be associated with such a facility.
“I would say that it could be a real economic development tool in different parts of the state. There is a rich history of professional wrestling tied to the western part of the state and I have heard from eastern North Carolina lawmakers that have talked about the wrestling matches and tours that came through that part of the state. Greensboro holds probably the record for the for the most number of matches, or the largest attendance, so I think the great thing about a professional wrestling museum is that different parts of the state can make an argument to be a home for it.”
Ric Flair was not immediately available for comment, probably because even at 76 years of age Flair is a still a limousine-ridin’, jet-flyin’, Rolex wearin’, kiss-stealin’, wheelin’-dealin’, son of a gun.
