"Wildfire" Tommy Rich: Overrated or Underrated?

[It's...Baylariat!]

Tommy "Wildfire" Rich is true old school. I believe his career started in the late 70's and was active as of the early 2000's. Rich is famous for winning the NWA Worlds Heavyweight Title from Harley Race in old school 'screwjob' fashion. As in, Race didn't know he was doing the job and was rolled up tightly by Rich to avoid kicking out. Needless to say, Rich was a true transitional champion. He was a member of the Mid-Atlantic Championship wrestling crew, then moved on to other smaller promotions, which include Memphis, Florida, and eventually came back to WCW in the early 90's and was a resident jobber basically.

Despite being a serviceable wrestler, I don't see him as someone who can be considered underrated. I'd go the overrated route in that he was an NWA champion when the belt was prestigious, but he didn't exactly make that into a shot to super stardom. Matter of fact, I had no idea he was NWA champ until I heard that commented when someone referred to Rich on an old WCW Clash of Champions as a former World Champion.

So "Wildfire" Tommy Rich...overrated or underrated?

 

[Big Sexy]

This is a tough one because not many people know about Tommy Rich. I hate to say he is overrated, but he definitely isn't underrated so I guess I'd go with overrated. He became the youngest ever NWA champion back in 1981, but the reign only lasted 4 days. From there he never regained the title. He was part of some great feuds in the NWA and Georiga Championship Wrestling, but I would never really consider him a main eventer. Once the late 80's came he went back to the NWA and was relegated to a mid card guy that was there to put talent over.

 

[No Gimmicks Necessary]

Even though this guy is largely unknown by the mainstream wrestling audience and is basically a footnote historically I would still have to go with overrated. The only reason being, as Lariat said, that cheap world title reign. He was a solid worker, and his feud with Buzz Sawyer really did light up the Georgia territory, but a there have been lot of guys who were solid workers and worked hot programs, but didn't get near a World Title reign (and shouldn't have).

When Rich got his brief run with the NWA title, that championship was really special- about as prestigious as you can get in a fake sport (no disrespect to any other versions of the "World Title"). So I think that if a new fan, or a fan interested in the history of wrestling wanted to research the heritage of the industry's top championships it is misleading for them to see the name "Tommy Rich" alongside those of Ric Flair, Harley Race, Terry Funk, Jack Brisco, and Lou Thesz. So for that reason alone I say overrated- if only marginally.

 

[jmt225]

Underrated, and it's only for one reason: His feud with Buzz Sawyer.

Honestly, Tommy Rich vs. Buzz Sawyer in the early eighties is one of the greatest feuds in wrestling history, but it hardly gets any recognition. Why? That's simply because Georgia Championship Wrestling, for whatever reason, wasn't anywhere near as respected as the other territories from that time. Mid-South gets praised to this day; WCCW gets praised to this day; Championship Wrestling from Florida gets praised to this day; Don Owen's Portland Wrestling gets praised to this day; however, you hardly ever hear anything about Georgia Championship Wrestling. I guess that's because they never had any real big stars, but for a while there, if you look at the facts, Rich vs. Sawyer was the hottest thing in professional wrestling for quite some time. And that feud was very important to the business because after Sammartino/Zbyszko, all that was left in the industry that was hot was the NWA Championship. The WWF had Bob Backlund, but he wasn't a draw at all. Texas and Mid-South had yet to get going really, and there was frankly nothing worth noting to make fans excited at the time. But then the Rich/Sawyer feud happened, and it just blew people away. I've heard Raven say fans think that feud was legit to this day. It was filled with such hatred, and had so much brutal shit for that time, people just really got into it.

So, yeah... that plus his run as NWA Champion makes him underrated. All most fans know him for was being the ridiculous guy in the FBI, but he contributed much, much, MUCH more than that to this wonderful business, and I highly doubt his accomplishments and contributions will ever got noticed by the majority.

 

[S_Raines]

I've seen Tommy Rich at a few shows a couple of years ago, while he was a good enough guy, I gottasay, that considering the fact that he's having to nickle and dime at small shows and most of thepople around have no clue who he is, that would make him over rated in my book, when a promoter advertises "MEET LEGENDARY TOMMY RICH"and nobody cares tosee him, because he was too insignificant, thatsays something... Unfortunate, cuz he is a great guy personally

 

[Midnite Express 2009]

Tommy Rich....Push. However, I have to bring up my opinion because this is a little tricky. 1st of all, no one ever really mentions Tommy Rich. He's never talked about when people speak on the past NWA Champions, and furthermore, he seems to be a forgotten person in the sport. I don't believe he's neither over or underrated due to the fact that he really didn't make much of a mark on the sport to be underrated, and he didn't do too much to help himself in the eyes of the public to be underrated.

Other than his red hot feud with Buzz Sawyer, that was it. We will never mind his NWA title reign, because everyone pretty much knows that was a way to pad Harley's record, so I wouldn't even consider him a transitional champion by any means whatsoever. So taking all these things into account, he never made it to any level and he was just stuck in the middle. So I say push. The man was a decent worker but had a horrible finisher and limited mic skills and was "lucky" to have won the gold when he did.

 

[AnthonyM4]

Tommy Rich is in my top 10 favorite wrestlers list of all time. Definitely underrated. A very solid worker and he had probably one of the most underated feuds of all time in Rich vs Sawyer. They often had bloody matches. I remember reading in one issue of Inside Wrestling, an entertaining "one on one" between them two. I'm glad he can say he was a nwa champion(even if only 4 days). He was also entertaining in ecw in the late 90s as the big don.

 

[wrestling fan 666]

Tommy Rich is a perfect example of a big fish in a small pond. In Georgia, he was the man. He had limited skills but his battles with Abdullah the Butcher and Buzz Sawyer were legendary. But when faced with the world class wrestlers, he was out of his league. He was kept on mid-card status for he didn't have the skills in the ring, on the mic, or behind the scenes to get to where he needed to be. He was very overrated...and don't forget how foolish he was when he was part of the "Full Blooded Italians" in ECW. That made his whole career look like a big joke.

 

[samboisdead]

Tommy Rich is kind of a sad story. I am surprised no one mentioned this but he was actually supsosed to become a huge star. The reason he didnt and the belt was taken from him so fast was apparently he had some drug problems, very out of control problems and he was apparently uncontrolable backstage. Anyway I dont no what would have happened if he didnt have these problems but in my opinion he is underated because he is 1 of the youngest champs ever, he had some pretty great matches and definately a legendary fued. The fact that he was champ and half the wrestling world has never heard his name alone makes him underated to me. And to the guy above me downing him for his ECW stint. I go to alot of Indy shows and get to meet tons of old school wrestlers. Most of them dont have a dime to their name and live off foodstamps and the 25 to 50 dollars they make per match. My point in this is Tommy didnt care how bad he looked t.v. time means you can charge promoters more to work and his acting a fool was good buisness for him. Not saying it was good or anything but you have to rember it is a buisness and these guys really make their living this way. So he would do anything a promoter asked just to be on t.v. and that is the way they booked him. So I dont think you should let this tarnish his career because the guy was just trying to make an honest living.

 

[CraigThe13th]

Wasn't that Jack Victory in the wheelchair?

Tommy Rich was 'Da Big Don' in the FBI if I remember right.

 

[Jack-Hammer]

Rich was a guy that was a big name and hot star in the major promotions in Georgia, Tennessee and Alabama and had some pretty hot feuds with guys like Buzz Sawyer, Ole Anderson, the Freebirds and some others. He won a total of around 25 or 26 NWA regional titles and did win the NWA World Heavyweight Championship. However, he has been out of the major limelight since the very early 90s and he's somewhat on the edge of obscurity overall since I'd say most of the fans today have no clue who he is.

His NWA World Heavyweight Championship reign isn't all that much to brag about really. Yes, he won it and nobody can take it away from him so there's something to be said about that. But, there are all sorts of stories revolving around it. Harley Race says it came about via some sort of power struggle in Georgia Championship Wrestling between all the shareholders, Michael Hayes says it was a screwjob scenario in which the ref was told to give a very fast count and so on and so forth. To top it off, the reign only lasted 4 days.

He was a solid in-ring worker and all, but I'll never think of him as "one of the greats" or anything like that. At the end of the day, I'd probably have to say he's somewhat overrated.

 

[presto]

To me, he was neither overrated or underrated. History has him remembered correctly. Even though people put down his role as the big don in ECW, the real end of his career occurred when he became

Thomas Rich

of the legendary "York Foundation" angle. Even though the angle was pretty cool for it's time, Rich really didn't fit in to the angle. To see him (and Ricky Morton as Richard Morton) in a suit and hear him talk "corporate speak" really ruined the angle. Mike Rotunda and eventually Terry Taylor were better suited for that angle.