Crowbar Recalls Working With David Flair In WCW, Explains Origin Of His Name

Crowbar recalls the days that he worked in a tag team with David Flair.

Being a Flair in the wrestling business comes with a preconceived reputation most of the time. That was the case for David Flair, who began his career in the wrestling business back in 1999. Fightful recently spoke to Crowbar, who teamed with Flair throughout 2000. In the interview, Crowbar admitted that he was unsure what David Flair’s personality would be like before they met.

“At that time I was already in WCW doing the Saturday night show as a darker Devon Storm, kind of similar to my look right now. I was being groomed to be the next, more aggressive bigger cruiserweight that would come up. At that time I was doing that for the Saturday night
show. As the story goes, we go to Vail, Colorado, flying to Denver, Saturday night show takes place after Nitro and Thunder. It’s like the third day or something like that. I fly in and, so I’m told, I get to the hotel bar and restaurant, have a leather jacket, my hair’s down, and supposedly Vince Russo really liked my look. Then the other management vouched for the work that I did. So David
Flair was popping a rating, but David Flair’s not a strong in-ring performer. So what do you do? They came up with an idea, ‘Let’s put David in there with a tag team partner that’s a stronger in-ring performer that can do the majority of the work. So we can say we can still get David in the ring, but we can kind of hide him.’ I had never met him, but I was there. You’re really not sure what the son of the Nature Boy’s gonna be like. Is he full of himself? He was a sweetheart of a
guy. Nicest guy. He was limited. He knew he was limited. He always wanted to learn. Shannon was fantastic. We were three kids just having a great time. It sounds very simple. People ask me about politics at the time. ‘What about when this changed or this booker, that
booker,’ I just had a great time. That’s just where my head was at.”

Crowbar went on to discuss how he transitioned from competing under Devon Storm into competing under the name Crowbar.

“David Flair was hitting people with a crowbar, so Vince wrote it into the story where they meet at the gas station.  I remember the bit was peoples in for gas, I’m filling up another car’s gas and I yell at the guy because he asked me to check the oil. I start bitching him out and then David loves it because he’s nuts and he goes, ‘Hey, what’s your name?’ I go, ‘Some people call me Crowbar.’ There we go.”

David Flair would go on to retire from the wrestling business in 2009. Meanwhile, Crowbar is still active today in companies like IMPACT Wrestling and Game Changer Wrestling.

Elsewhere in the interview, Crowbar spoke about his recent appearance in AEW. To learn more, click here.