Trivia / Ric Flair

• Creator Backlash:
  • Flair didn't like much of his time in WCW, especially during the time Eric Bischoff headed the promotion. This bled into storyline, with Flair infamously being suspended for almost a year after enacting legal action against Bischoff. His treasured memory from WCW? Watching it go out of business!
  • Flair has made it no secret that he regrets going to TNA, for several reasons (mostly some storylines that were degrading to him), and that he did it mostly for the money, as his WWE Legends contract wasn't enough.
  • Flair greatly regretted the storyline in early 2021 in which he was in a relationship with Lacey Evans, who's forty-one years his junior and four years younger than his daughter, with the storyline only ending when Evans became pregnant in real life. It went to the point that it was reported to be the reason why Flair asked for his release from WWE in August of that year.
• Doing It for the Art:
  • Flair is noted for giving his all for any wrestling storyline, no matter the quality.
    Wrestle! Wrestle!: You need look no further than Randy Orton, who is a walking sleeping pill. That guy, he's going for "intense", but he's just so static. He's boring. He talks in a monotone. "Josh Matthews. At WrestleMania. I will be. The WWE champion." Yawn. Fucking yawn! Ric Flair would get in front of that camera, he's like, "I'M GONNA WIN AT WRESTLEMANIA! I WILL BE THE WORLD CHAMPION WOOOOO!!" That's what that guy brings. You know, watching Ric Flair, that Ric Flair will die for your sins in that ring.
  • After his surprise appearance at AAA's Triplemanía XXIX, it was reported that Flair actually paid for his own personal expenses, from traveling to accomodation, and that his appearance was his and Andrade's idea (after Flair asked for his release from WWE only four days prior), and that his presence (pleasantly) shocked AAA's personnel.
• Hostility on the Set: Flair has said in interviews he immensely dislikes current WWE CFO/President Nick Khan, and will never work for the promotion again as long as Khan works there, due to the latter trying to steal "the Man" name from him.
• Irony as She Is Cast:
  • Nature Boy was always rollin' in dollars and hot women, whereas later in life Flair has had problems with both money and women.
  • For a man who always boasted about his riches, there is no material difference between his arch-rival Dusty Rhodes and Flair's upbringing. Flair didn't grow up rich; was part of a "black market" baby brokerage scheme based out of the infamous Tennessee Children's Home society and adopted by the Fliehr family. He doesn't definitively know his birth name or the names of his biological parents.
• Keep Circulating the Tapes: The Mid-Atlantic stuff. While it is on YouTube, the quality isn't always there.
• Life Imitates Art: Probably not in a good way but Flair was notorious for basically living his gimmick out of the ring (such as walking around the infamous "Plane Ride from Hell" in the buff with only his entrance robes covering him and exposing himself to flight attendants). His not-so-stellar late career is the consequence of living too large when he had it made and ending up in some bad financial situations in his golden years.
• Real Life Writes the Plot
  • Happened a few times in Flair's career, notably his "Real World Champion" gimmick in his first WWF run and his firing/rehiring in WCW in 1998.
  • Also, the Horsemen's gimmick. According to Arn Anderson, it became a "full-blown shoot".
  • We could eliminate the national debt tomorrow if we totaled up Ric Flair's alimony payments. To his credit, he's owned up to it and incorporated it into his schtick.
  • The plane crash that broke his back caused him to alter his style in-ring. To the end, he never took another bump directly on his back (he took them slightly to the side instead).
• Romance on the Set: Flair's current girlfriend, Wendy Barlow, used to play his valet, "Fifi the Maid", on his A Flair For the Gold segments in WCW.
• Throw It In!
  • At an NWA TV taping in 1986, Flair, Ole, and Arn Anderson, Tully Blanchard, and manager James J Dillon were placed in an impromptu interview spot together due to time constraints. The four wrestlers had been working as something akin to a stable before this, but then Arn said "The only time this much havoc had been wreaked by this few a number of people, you need to go all the way back to the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse!" during the interview; just weeks later, fans were carrying "Four Horsemen" signs to NWA events. The name stuck, and the Four Horsemen went on to become arguably the most successful and powerful stable in pro wrestling (until the New World Order came along).
  • The widespread "Woos" after using one of Flair's moves. It began as a form of mockery by Shane Douglas, who derided Flair and the other NWA alums (of which Shane was one) as dinosaurs. But it became an endearing Shout-Out, and is guaranteed to be heard whenever a wrestler chops an opponent in the corner.
• What Could Have Been:
  • Flair vs. Luger. The duo would would have a series of matches building toward a monumental Flair/Luger feud that would last until 1991: Luger doggedly fought Flair for the title, and again the Horseman managed to interfere/cheat their way to victory. When at long last, Jim Herd booked Flair to drop the strap, it was when Flair had his famous contract dispute with Herd, not so much about dropping the strap but because of Herd wanted to do with Flair after dropping the title: Herd wanted to reduce Flair's role in the promotion, despite the fact that Flair was still a top draw, and according to Flair, Herd also proposed changes in his appearance and ring name such as shaving his hair, wearing a diamond earring and going by the name Spartacus. This made Flair went for the WWF — but he would never fully recapture the glory of the decade he owned. As for Luger, somewhere along the line it started to go wrong for him, and despite going for the top titles from WCW to the WWF and back, he would always inevitably drop to the mid-card and stay there for the remainder of his career.
  • Vince was handed one of the greatest, already trimmed and manicured storylines of all time when Flair finally left the NWA. When Ric left Atlanta in 1991, he took the championship belt with him. He paraded it about the WWF ring to drum up even more heat. (When WCW asked for the belt back, Flair simply replied that they didn't return Flair's $25,000 deposit he had made for the belt, a deposit that per regulations was required of reigning NWA World Heavyweight Champions and was to be returned after the conclusion of their reigns.) There was a build-up for a possible showdown at WrestlMania between the two "World Champions" — WWE's Hogan and WCW's Flair — but, for various reasons, that wasn't in the cards yet. Instead, Flair connived and cheated like his always does, enlisting The Undertaker to cripple Hogan and get him out of the way. Bear in mind that, at the time, both men were undefeated in their respective promotions; Flair left Atlanta before WCW could drop the belt to someone else. (Reportedly, he and Hulk and had horrific house show matches, and is why they backed out of Hogan-Flair for WM8.)
  • Two years later, Flair played a major role in recruiting Hogan for WCW, again raising hopes for a clash of the titans. Instead, Bischoff sidelined Naitch and focused all of the company's attention on their new acquisition, replacing Flair with...er, Ed Leslie.
    The Death of WCW: The fans, who had been so hot for the Hogan-Flair showdowns, seemed to suddenly lose interest in what Hogan was doing. And when the buy rates came in for Starrcade, the company was stunned...Obviously, Ed Leslie was no Ric Flair.
  • Ric Flair was set to appear at NXT TakeOver 2, but was pulled from the show due to personal reasons. Flair was wildly speculated to be the man to introduce the NXT crowd to Kenta, nowadays better known by his full name, Kenta Kobayashi.
  • Flair was almost close to showing up in WWF in mid-1998 when he was going through legal and personal problems with WCW. In fact, he was in town on the day that Unforgiven was in Greensboro, NC that year, and even considered showing up in attendance as a shot at Eric Bischoff.^note  Jim Cornette has stated that the announcers would have announced “a wrestling champion is in the audience” and then interviewed his son Reid. His lawyers advised him against doing anything with WWF at that moment however, and he eventually patched things up with WCW months later.
• Written by Cast Member: Flair was a member of NWA's booking committee in 1989, which resulted in the acclaimed Flair-Steamboat trilogy that year.
• Written-In Infirmity: The plane crash is why he went from big muscle-y guy to the technician he was: The crash quite literally broke his back (to the point that he avoided taking bumps flat on his back for the rest of his career), which forced him to hone his in-ring Wrestling Psychology to compensate. The aforementioned bump aversion meant that it also had the ironic side effect that, while the crash almost ended his life, it saved his lengthy career.

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