Ric Flair Interview

[masterragu]

Q&A: Ric Flair



Ric Flair, one of the most popular figures in the sport, has been a pro wrestler since 1972.

Title: Professional wrestler

Age: 54

Home: Charlotte

In the news because: Flair is among the wrestlers competing in 'Monday Night Raw' in Fayetteville.

The name Richard Morgan Fliehr might not ring a bell with most sports fans. To hear him tell it, though, there's hardly a soul on the planet, and he's traveled most of it, who doesn't know him by his alter ego: Ric Flair, a.k.a., pro wrestling's "Nature Boy."

Flair was a standout high school athlete, winning a Wisconsin state wrestling championship and earning all-state honors as a football player. In 1972, he made his debut with a national professional wrestling body, the American Wrestling Association.

It wasn't until later in the '70s, that Ric Flair became a worldwide sports entertainment figure. By then, the "Nature Boy" persona - peroxided hair, mastery of the microphone and the ring, and his trademark "Whooo!" exclamation - was in full bloom. At least 16 world championships have ensued, including two with World Wrestling Entertainment, which invades the Crown Coliseum on Monday night for the live national broadcast of "Raw" on the Spike network.

Flair, a member of the WWE's Evolution faction with Triple H, Batista and Randy Orton, spoke this week with Observer staff writer Thomas Pope about his career.

Q: In your days with the National Wrestling Alliance, what do you remember about wrestling in Fayetteville's Crown Arena with guys such as Wahoo McDaniel, Paul Jones and Magnum T.A.?

A: We used to work Fayetteville every week. You'd be on a card in either Greenville (S.C.) or Fayetteville every Monday. I must've worked there at least twice a month for 12 or 13 years.

Q: With the WWE dominating professional wrestling these days, is that better or worse in terms of fans feeling an attachment to wrestlers?

A: Now that we don't come to a town but twice a year and it's hard to know who the audience is. ... The upside is that the fans are more familiar with the product because we're on TV all the time. We're all over the place now. We're in New York one night, Chicago the next, L.A., Fayetteville, Wilkes-Barre, St. Louis - it's a huge, huge market.

Q: But is that a good thing compared to the personal connection the smaller groups once had with the public?

A: If you're making $5 million a year now as opposed to $200,000, which is better? You tell me. I'm one of the guys who loved it back then and I love it now. I'm one of the few who can really pass judgment on that because I'm one of the few who's seen it all. I'm not saying the wrestling's any better, I don't think the guys are different, but the benefits are better, the money's better, the exposure's better. We're as big as any professional sport or athletes in the world, and anybody who doesn't think so needs to walk into a bar and they'll find out that "The Rock" is just as big as Tiger Woods. It might not be as big to someone who follows golf and hasn't come out of the country club in 20 years, but I can guarantee you that "Stone Cold" Steve Austin walking through downtown Fayetteville will get a much bigger pop than Tiger Woods would.

Q: Who is your favorite opponent of all time?

A: Ricky Steamboat. The answer for me is chemistry and work ethic. ... He was someone I met when we were both young, we worked our craft together, and we had a bond that few people have. I probably wrestled him five days a week for 10 years, and 50 percent of the time we worked for an hour, not six minutes. He and I spent a lot of time in the ring together.

Q: An awful lot of wrestlers have died young because they couldn't handle the strain of the sport and turned to drugs.

A: I get really stressed out with the media in general about this. Drugs or anything like that are the easy way out and it's got nothing to do with wrestling. Nobody worked harder than me, nobody played harder than me, nobody traveled further than me, and I never had a drug problem.

Drugs are a choice, I don't care what somebody tells you.

Q: You could have retired comfortably a long time ago. Why do you still do this for a living?

A: I had an opportunity to come back and gain some self-esteem. Hopefully I can put myself back where I should've been 10 year ago with WCW and leave on a high note. I work three or four days a week, usually three, and I'm making more money than I made 15 years ago.

[Makabreli]

I liked what he said about the drug thing, health problems should be natural dammit.