28 October, 2015. 13:27
IMRAN GASHKORI | Editor | CONTACT
It seems the Western Sydney Wanderers have had enough. After an endless barrage of media hype over flares, the A-League cellar dwellers have decided to fire back, today announcing a bold bid to lure former WWF/WWE wrestling superstar Ric Flair to the club as a club mascot and potential owner.
Flair was recently spotted at Suncorp Stadium checking out NRL star Daniel Vidot, who recently signed a contract with the WWE. Wanderers’ officials reportedly swooped, and are set to offer the wrestling Hall of Famer a “contract for life”.
Sources close to Flair say their man wants the Red and Black Bloc to change their chant from “Who do you sing for” to “Wooooooooo do you sing for”, a move the club is happy to embrace.
The tongue-in-cheek acquisition would be a marketing master stroke for the ailing franchise, which has struggled for relevance on and off the field since making back-to-back grand finals in its first two seasons. In fact, the only coverage the club has received in 2015 has focused on flares, making today’s announcement a complete mockery of the monotonous Sydney media.
While the “Nature Boy” is rumoured to know little about the round ball game, a spokesman for the 16-time world champion said his client had been looking for an opportunity like this for quite some time. “Mr Flair loves Australia. He fell in love with the place in 2005 when he first heard Joel Turner and the Modern Day Poets, and recently invested heavily in Vegemite’s iSnack 2.0”.
The 66 year old openly admits to never having heard of the A-League, but thoroughly enjoyed watching a 13 minute loop of Frank Lowy falling off the podium at last year’s GF, tweeting “what a finish to the main event #LowyBlow”.
Any deal with Mr Flair would hurt the Central Coast Mariners, who were in the market for a WWE legend of their own. A club insider told me that the club was in close talks with Brock Lesnar about a possible partnership that would see the Pacific Highway change its name from the F3 to the F5 Freeway.
“We’ve already got approval from NSW Premier Mike Baird. Now we just need the green light from Lesnar’s manager, Paul Heyman”.
The move would strengthen the competition’s international appeal, with US broadcaster Fox Sports keen on a potential pay-per-view deal with the A-League. The FFA were unavailable for comment.
