- The most prestigious champion in the world,
Nature Boy Ric Flair!
[tense music]
- They all want to be--whoo!
Like the Nature Boy,
but there can only be one.
[upbeat music]
- Ric Flair,
the self-professed dirtiest player in the game.
A villainous playboy...
- Whoo!
- Who openly displayed attributes
that the modern society viewed as evil.
- He was cocky. He was arrogant.
- I'm not like every other Tom, Dick, and Harry
that walks on your program.
- And he was great at making me hate his guts.
- When I'm in that ring,
I don't care about anybody but me.
- He'd use every dirty trick in the book.
He's the dirtiest player in the game.
- I'm the dirtiest player in the game.
- Oh, my God! Right across his knee!
- He could be incredibly vicious.
- There's your pretty boy. Now he's ugly!
- Ric is a Scarface-like figure.
- Gold around my neck.
Rolex watch around my wrist looking so fine.
- He had everything that you wanted,
and he reminded you.
- I spent more money on spilled booze
than you made in the last six months.
- His brand wasn't always family-friendly.
- I have four or five women every day of my life.
- Ric Flair--whoo!
was selling sex, drugs, and rock and roll.
- Beautiful women, bright lights,
the big city, limousine rides, jet flying son of a gun.
- Nature was really living all of that.
There was no pretend in any of it.
- You got to be bored to death. The same woman every night?
- Paying alimony to three women at one time was a lot of dough.
As a matter of fact, that's got to be
some kind of record, right?
I'm not changing my lifestyle.
- It was weird because you kind of hated him,
but you loved hating him.
- He appeals to what human beings want.
We wanna be the Man.
- Post Malone, my man. Whoo!
all: Whoo!
- To this day, if you say Ric Flair,
the whole audience will go, "Whoo!"
crowd: Whoo!
- Diamond Ric Flair. all: Whoo!
- Everything was just so over the top with him.
He loved the glamorous life, and who doesn't?
- Whether you like it--whoo!
Or don't like it, learn to love it!
To be the man, daddy, you got beat the Man.
[chuckles]
[dramatic music]
* *
- When you're Ric Flair,
when you're the world champion--whoo!
When you're all there is!
I mean, let's show them one time.
Put that camera on this. Can you get something
to show them what's happening right here?
- Why are we so captivated by villains?
- Villains are the people that drive stories.
- You need people like me.
- Essentially, if you think about any great movie or story
that's ever been told, there can't be a great hero...
- Is he talking to me? - Without a great villain.
- Target zero, right...
here.
- The best villains are the ones
who know what they have to offer
and they're not afraid to talk about it.
- I want you to deal with your problems by becoming rich!
all: Yeah!
- In an era defined by excess,
Flair stole the spotlight.
- The Man.
- You gotta understand I'm a hip-hop child, right?
So seeing somebody like that
wear jewelry, and had all the women,
and had all the cars,
it's like that's right up my alley.
- He's not a demon.
He's not a monster. He's a very real man.
- Whoo!
- A man who is better than you.
- Every great villain has an origin story.
- Wanna know how I got these scars?
- And Ric Flair is no different.
- They all wanna be--whoo! Like the Nature Boy.
But there can only be one.
- So just how did he become the Nature Boy?
- I think I was born the Nature Boy,
much to the dismay of my parents.
I grew up in Minneapolis, Minnesota.
And I can remember as a kid,
I liked watching wrestling on Saturday night.
My birthday present every year
was to take me to wrestling matches.
I'm adopted, and couldn't have been adopted
by two finer people.
Parents were both so smart.
My dad a double doctorate, my mom a master's.
But I didn't inherit any of their genes.
To say that I was difficult would be an understatement.
I can remember, one night, when I was in seventh grade,
I tied the sheets together,
just like you see in the movies,
got into my friend's Pontiac, who had borrowed it
from his dad, who didn't have a driver's license.
Then we headed over to a girl's slumber party.
This ended up with me in jail
6:00 a.m. on Father's Day.
It was an experience, but you grow up fast.
Got me to a place where the judge said to my parents
it's either military school or boarding school.
So my parents found a real nice boarding school.
There's a lot to be said for going to boarding school
in terms of the responsibility
that you have to carry on your shoulders to grow up.
Either make it or you don't.
And I mean, a lot of kids just rely, go back,
and fall down on your family's name.
All the people in that school,
90% of them came from very wealthy families.
So I saw the lifestyle I wanted.
I just had to figure out how to afford it.
Wasn't really much to fall back on.
I wasn't gonna be a doctor.
So I just found another way to make it,
and I'm--I'm just happy and lucky
that I wound up in wrestling.
- In 1972, Flair was a far cry
from becoming the Nature Boy.
- I met Verne, Verne Gagne, AWA champion,
and the promoter and the owner of AWA,
the American Wrestling Alliance,
who I'd met before
because his son and I were friends in high school.
Looked at me and said, "Yeah, we'll see what you got."
That's how it all started.
- You gotta know how to fall. If you don't know how to fall,
you're going to get hurt.
And if you're hurt, you can't wrestle.
And if you can't wrestle,
you don't eat.
It's that simple.
- During the era in which Ric Flair came into wrestling,
there weren't a lot of trainers better than Verne Gagne.
- We had to run 2 miles the first day
and then 500 free squats, 200 crunches.
- 200.
- In 30-degree weather in a barn.
Once I got through that, I felt I could do anything.
You've got Mr. Charisma, Mr. Excitement, Ric Flair,
and you know who I got in my mind?
I got the boy, Conway, with the funny-looking hairdo.
- Everything we know about Ric Flair growing up
is that he did get into trouble.
And I think it was realizing that the stuff he did
that got people so riled up had a real purpose
in the world of professional wrestling.
[bell dings] - Ric Flair...
- Ric had been wrestling for a couple of years,
and he was still figuring out who he was.
- Nothing stood out about Ric Flair.
And you got to stand out to make money.
You got to stand out to have some kind of character
that people are going to remember.
He was kind of unspectacular.
- We're driving 3,000 miles a week back then.
I'd met this guy in a bar--
shocker, right?
That told me he had a plane. He could fly us.
So we'd been flying with the guy for about a month.
The plane crash came in '75, October 4th.
[dramatic music]
We ran out of gas at 6,000 feet
about a mile and a half from the runaway.
The first engine pinned.
He reached down to pull reserve.
There was always reserve gas.
Second engine pinned.
[high-pitched ringing]
[siren wailing]
The next thing I knew, I was getting put
in one of these old military ambulances.
I just remember them saying,
"I think we're gonna lose this one."
I thought they were talking about me.
Pilot died.
Valentine and Bob Bruggers were paralyzed.
I broke my back in three places.
[machines beeping]
I didn't think I'd ever be able to wrestle again.
[siren wailing]
- He has this horrible plane crash
that he's somehow able to survive.
And while he's in the hospital,
it forces him to take a step back
early in his career
and to think about what it is
that he wants to do with this thing.
- I had lost a lot of weight.
I went from 255 to 180
while I was with a broken back.
- Ric probably sitting there
knowing, "I can't be in the ring.
"I can't go out and be myself.
"How do I turn this into a positive?
What can I change?"
- That's when he starts thinking about
the Nature Boy Buddy Rogers.
- Buddy "Nature Boy" Rogers strutting around the ring.
- In the '60s, Nature Boy Buddy Rogers had a strut.
But he had great promos, especially for the day.
He was cocky, arrogant.
- To a nicer guy it couldn't happen.
- He had his shiny, sequined ring gear and jackets
and things like that.
- Ric Flair, who was a big fan of his
and a student of the game, probably took that
and was like, "Man, I could make this 100 times better."
- And that's how it all started with Nature Boy.
- I don't think that you could have a better example
of a phoenix rising from the literal ashes of an airplane.
- Nature Boy, Ric Flair!
- The uncrowned world champion, the U.S. belt,
the World Tag belt, doesn't make any difference.
The new Ric Flair.
- He almost died. He broke his back.
He came back.
And he said, "It's not enough for me to be Ric Flair.
I have to become the Nature Boy."
- Here I am, looking better than any man alive.
The most gorgeous human being on the face of this Earth.
- In 1978, I felt pretty comfortable with myself.
The Nature Boy thing was kicking in.
- Once he realized he was "the Man,"
I think that's where that evil persona really took over.
- One of the biggest stars in wrestling today.
He knows it.
He's probably one of the biggest egotists.
- And the presentation was all part of the package.
- Ric walked in dressed to the nines, hair perfect,
and had a swagger about him and a strut about him.
- You can see that slightly cocky walk that he has.
- Prior to Ric Flair,
professional wrestling wasn't the sort of job
that you showed up to in a suit.
When you see somebody getting off of a team bus
and for those, like, 90 seconds
that they're being trailed by a camera,
they have put on a three-piece suit
and a nice watch and a pair of sunglasses,
there's a little bit of Ric Flair in all that.
- We're talking about stylin' and profilin'.
The most expensive stuff available.
I saw Joe Namath, and I was gonna be better.
Diamond ring wearing, kiss-stealing--whoo!
Wheeling, dealing, limousine-riding,
jet-flying son of a gun.
- He had everything that you wanted,
and he reminded you
that he had everything that you wanted.
- Ric stood out and was different
than everybody else every single night.
- I dress myself in alligator shoes.
I wear a $15,000 Rolex.
Rolex owes me a commercial, man.
A free one. [chuckles]
Rolex, when?
- Ric Flair's full of himself,
and that's what makes it easy to boo him.
But when he says, like, "You wish you had what I have,"
he's not wrong.
- Whoo! Setting the world on fire.
- Private jets?
You didn't know of people who flew in private airplanes,
and Ric Flair did this on the regular.
- He was simply the personification of excess
in a decade defined by materialism and greed.
- I think the '80s were an ideal time for Ric.
- "Lifestyles of the Rich and Famous" on TV,
shows like "Dynasty" and greed is good, right?
- Greed, for lack of a better word, is good.
- Ric Flair was the Gordon Gekko of wrestling.
- This is what all of them are wearing
on Wall Street, Danny, huh?
- If you had Michael Jordans, you were Ric Flair life.
If you were wearing PRO-keds or Converses,
you were just some wrestler
he was gonna beat up that night.
- When I'm in that ring,
I don't care about anybody
in the whole world but me.
- He understood what a villain is supposed to do in the ring.
The villain getting his butt kicked in the right spots
is what makes a match work.
- I can't help but feel that Dusty has it right here now.
- You have to make a guy look like he's a guy
that can beat you for that world championship.
- Oh, he's upside down!
- The toss into the turnbuckle,
grab the bottom buckle, flip over,
and run down the side of the ring
is one of the most classic
"watch the bad guy get what he deserves" moves.
- And he brings him up very unceremoniously
right off the top.
- The Flair on his knees, when he do like that
and that hair be shaking.
- And Flair cowering in the corner.
- He was begging him, "Please, please don't do it."
And the referee goes, "Oh come on."
And then the guy turns his back,
and then Flair jumps up and punches him.
- Flair, thumb to the eye of Sting.
- Would really make you say, "Wait a minute, man.
You can't be doing that to the good guys."
- And there's his play-it-again slam.
- There's your pretty boy. Now he's ugly.
- When he got on your good guy,
he could do it and be incredibly vicious.
- Flair's got a chair!
Oh, my God! Right across his knees.
- I'm the dirtiest player in the game!
- He calls himself the dirtiest player in the game.
When you say that out loud,
it takes a little bit of the sting off of it, right?
It's like he's telling you who he is.
- He's cheating. - Yes, he's cheating.
- Hey, shut up!
- He was leaving with that title,
and that's what made him a great villain.
- I am still the world heavyweight wrestling champion.
- My dad being able to take you on this roller coaster
and look like he was about to lose,
but being the dirtiest player in the game,
he was able to sneak one out, just makes you hate him more.
Like you weren't even gonna win.
- To be the man, daddy, you gotta beat the Man.
- Being a man was about conquering.
Ric Flair represented everybody's bully.
- Sting. Oh, it's great.
The first thing I wanna do
when I get up in the morning is paint my face.
- His ability to talk [...] is unparalleled.
- He knew the buttons to push on people.
- You got to be bored to death.
The same woman every night?
- It's kinda like that Floyd Mayweather disease
where people pay a lot of money to watch this guy lose.
- The whole world
wants to shut Slick Ric up, bottom line.
- Flair's obnoxious flaunting of wealth and status
made for a perfect rivalry
with the blue-collar working man.
- Oh, oh. Here he comes! The American Dream.
- Dusty Rhodes, also known as the American Dream,
was a working-class guy who dared to stand up to the Man.
- Get a dream, hold on to it, and shoot for the sky.
- I wanted to see Dusty Rhodes beat the tar out him.
Dusty Rhodes was the everyday working man,
the son of a plumber.
- Who's your favorite wrestler? - Dusty Rhodes.
- He represented the average guy.
That's why they loved him.
That's why they connected with them.
They felt like they were him.
- Dusty Rhodes, the man who has caught the heart
and the fancy in the minds of people everywhere.
- If you were the regular fan,
rooting for the son of a plumber like Dusty Rhodes,
there was no one worse than Ric Flair.
He embodied all of this capitalistic greed.
- This wasn't just a rivalry.
This was class warfare,
the working-class hero taking on the loud-mouth rich guy
flaunting his spoils.
- I want you to jump out of that TV.
Yeah, you bad. Yeah, you bad, Ric.
- Big Dust, you got no belt. You got no life.
You got nothing to brag about.
Nothing to stand on.
- Don't talk about the American Dream, Dusty Rhodes.
I am the best, daddy. There is no other.
- It was the guy on the pedestal
against the common man.
- I'm tired of looking at hat.
I'm just gonna slip it off and throw it out to the fans.
Yeah, yeah!
- He would talk about what a disgusting slob
Dusty Rhodes was.
- Dusty Rhodes, you're a country-talking fool.
- But he knew that that was going to get under fans' skin.
- I'm gonna beat you half to death because I have to.
- He was the guy living in the biggest house
in the biggest side of town.
The other guy was the son of a plumber.
Blue collar, white collar. It was classic.
- Now is the time
that the talking stops and the fighting begins.
- A battle of two giants
in the wrestling world here tonight.
- The war between Flair and Dusty
set a new standard
for what an epic rivalry could become.
- I wrestled Dusty in the Orange Bowl,
and we had, like, 40,000 people.
We did huge business.
- While Flair and Rhodes
were in all-out conflict,
the U.S. was waging a cold war against the Soviet Union...
- Soviets have been building their military strength.
The Cold War went right on.
- A real-life issue
that was playing out in the ring.
- Sports entertainment 101 is
who was the U.S.'s enemy at this time?
- Russia, number one. Iran, number one.
USA--[spits]
- You just plug that in. It's very easy.
There's that sense of pride and nationalism.
And if you have somebody that's representing that,
people are gonna cheer for that person.
- So fast forward to Nikita Koloff
taking on a Ric Flair.
And Ric Flair, even though we hated him
and he was this evil guy, he was our evil guy.
- And as we have seen so many times, a double-team.
- Flair is locked in a cage. He's in peril.
- And here's the American Dream
as he got into the ring.
- In comes Dusty Rhodes, the American Dream.
- Coming to the aid of the world heavyweight champion
is Dusty Rhodes, the world television champion.
- Dusty comes out, and he helps Ric Flair.
- And right now, Dusty has cleared the ring,
and there they stand.
And now we're going to see, Bob, look here, from behind,
both the Andersons working over Dusty Rhodes.
- And he turns on Dusty Rhodes.
- Ric is not worried about red, white, and blue.
Ric is worried about green at the end of the day.
- And now it's a three on one.
- Attacking Dusty, breaking his leg,
beating on Dusty Rhodes.
- The violence seemed real.
You thought, "Man, Ric really wants to kill Dusty."
- All of us sitting there like,
how can we have been so stupid
as to trust the dirtiest player in the game?
- Fans were trying to climb the cage
to get inside to help Dusty Rhodes.
- Took us an hour to get out of the ring.
We had heat, man,
and it drove people crazy.
- That face sure tells it all, Tony.
- I'm the man
that put Dusty Rhodes in a knee-high cast.
Dusty Rhodes.
- Get him, Ric!
- It's only just begun.
- With the sabotage on Dusty,
Flair was a marked man.
He needed reinforcements,
so he created a faction of henchmen.
- The Four Horsemen! That's what it's all about!
The mastermind and all the talent.
The new world Tag Team champions
Ole and Arn Anderson.
The new world TV champion Tully Blanchard.
Four guys that could work and talk.
Real simple.
We are the studs in professional wrestling.
- Obviously, Ric being the leader of the group.
JJ Dillon, a manager of the Four Horsemen.
Arn Anderson being that enforcer.
And then you have someone like Ole Anderson,
who was mean as can be.
- How about it now, Rhodes, huh? How about it now?
- And Tully Blanchard, he was smooth.
He was the guy in the ring
that maybe was the closest to Ric.
- The Horsemen were sitting around
having a little brewski,
looking at a few ladies on the beach.
- All you have to do is go like this, and everybody knows
what you're talking about.
- We talking Horsemen.
- Ric Flair elevated every other member of that team.
all: Whoo-hoo!
- The group embodied
everything that Flair stood for:
money, women, and, of course, dirty deeds.
- He's doing it again like before!
- They weren't the biggest. They weren't the strongest.
They weren't the fastest,
but they were the most tight-knit.
- There's Tully Blanchard and the Andersons
and the Four Horsemen together.
- If I was a wrestler, I'd be Killer Mike,
and I'd be the fifth Horseman.
- All for one, Horsemen, and one for all.
[dramatic music]
- The Four Horsemen became the blueprint
to every faction to follow from that point forward.
- They were the first.
I was so influenced by it
that I went off the rails of my career.
- We are the D-Generation X. - D-Generation.
- You made your rules, and we will break them.
- Before DX, the nWo,
and every iconic group that would follow,
the Horseman revolutionized the industry.
- Traveling from town to town, kicking butt.
- We beat up who we want to beat up,
when we wanna beat them up.
- They just went around saying they were the best,
and they were.
- There is no greater faction in the history of pro wrestling
than the Four Horsemen.
- With the Horsemen by his side,
Flair was unbeatable,
winning championship after championship.
- Ric Flair is the champion again!
- You're history, Luger! Whoo!
- So by the late '80s,
Ric Flair sorta starts to distance himself
from the Four Horsemen.
As he distanced himself from the Four Horsemen,
he kind of got back into his craft,
which is being an incredible wrestler.
And that kind of started this rivalry
with Ricky "the Dragon" Steamboat.
- You're gonna be mine. Don't make a mistake.
- One-hour time limit
for the heavyweight championship of the world.
And now Flair, double arm suplex.
Great move!
- His working the ring was insane.
- Flair, great movement.
Oh, busts him--my God-- on the top.
- Flair was going 60 minutes a night.
60 minutes in the main event.
- I am, and you ask the female audience,
the 60-minute man, pal.
So if you can hang in there, think about it.
- People start to look at Ric Flair, like "Huh.
"I know this guy cheats a lot,
"but he really wrestles his ass off.
He can go." You know?
- It showed the world
that once you put the microphone down,
Ric Flair is every bit as good a wrestler as he says he is.
- A slam.
But Flair inside. One, two--
- He did it! - He did it!
[cheers and applause]
And Flair has done it. Flair has done it.
- As his fame and fortune continued to grow,
so did his arrogance.
- Take a look at that, huh?
Arnold Schwarzenegger, be glad you're making movies.
- But the manner in which he did it
made his presence undeniable.
- Ric is a Scarface-like figure...
- Say good night to the bad guy.
- Because he appeals to what human beings want.
We wanna be the Man.
- I'm rich. I'm famous.
I'm unparalleled in sports today.
I'm the Man.
- Ric Flair is the reason I sit here right now
with a Rolex on my arm and $150,000 Mercedes outside.
It's not that I thought
that that's what I needed to be cool.
He was cool, and that was everything he had.
- I think, secretly, deep down inside,
we all wanted to be that guy.
But Ric Flair was the epitome of that.
- A part of us is like, wow.
It's flash, right? It's wealth.
It's all of the things that a lot of people
would aspire to in real life.
- The girls over here are hollering.
[cheering]
Slick Ric, you know. Hey.
- He wanted to be the guy that got all the girls.
When you think of him, that's just the thing
that is attached.
- I tell you, the lifestyle of this man
never ceases to amaze.
- Hulk was selling milk and cookies.
- These are the very best vitamins on the market.
- Ric Flair--whoo!
Was selling sex, drugs, and rock and roll.
- Hulk Hogan had cartoons, but what he didn't have
was the ability to walk into any club
and every woman in that club
instantly think "I wanna ride Space Mountain tonight."
- You don't have to go to Disney World
to find Space Mountain.
It's right here.
I just made it up one day. [laughs]
One night, a woman--whoo! Just screamed out,
"It's like--it's like--whoo! Space Mountain."
And next thing I knew, it was, like, national news.
And I got news for you.
When you get on Space Mountain, you'll be like this--
Drinks on the Nature Boy. [laughs]
[dramatic music]
I spent more money on spilled booze
than you made in the last six months.
- The Nature Boy's avarice lifestyle
wasn't an act.
He lived it 24/7.
- Where does that character end,
and where does the real guy begin?
We don't really know that at all.
- It's who he truly was.
The Ric Flair character was so strong
that I think it overtook his life.
- No, this is the WWE.
- By 1992, Flair had yet
to style and profile his way through the WWE.
- There he is in all his regal-ness.
- At WWE's Royal Rumble event,
Flair outlasted 29 other superstars
to win the WWE championship.
- It's Flair from behind. Oh, yes. Yes!
- It was the pinnacle of his career and his life.
- The promo that Ric Flair cut after winning
the 1992 Royal Rumble and becoming the WWE champion
is the most important Ric Flair promo there is.
- I'm gonna tell y'all with a tear in my eye,
this is the greatest moment in my life.
- 'Cause he says, "With a tear in my eye,
this is the greatest moment of my life."
He doesn't say, "This is the greatest moment
of my professional life."
He says, "This is the greatest moment of my life."
- It's the greatest moment of my life.
- It is a real acknowledgment
that there is nothing more important to him
than being at the top of his industry.
And that includes family, and that includes friends,
and that includes anything
that might happen outside of this universe.
- Whoo! [laughs]
- That was his life. That's who he was.
I think Ric Flair was 100% committed to pro wrestling.
- I live and die
and breathe each day of my life for this business.
- For 15 years,
Flair's deviant actions in the ring
fueled his lavish lifestyle outside of it.
Everything I have is because my name is Ric Flair.
- But it was getting out of control.
The line between the character and the man was gone.
- I mean, it wasn't a gimmick.
This was the life that he ended up leading.
- Come on up here, ladies.
Let this camera get a little bit of look at you.
Jan, darlin',
I didn't expect to see you for another week or two.
- Nature was really living all of that.
There was no pretend in any of it.
- Can you believe these women?
Now you know why I come into this television station
a little weary once in a while.
I have to fulfill all the dreams, the desires,
the wishes, and the lusts of thousands of young women
all throughout this great country.
- The best was in Baltimore, when I woke up in the morning,
and there were two chicks, and she said,
"You threw your Rolex in a bowl of spaghetti
"last night at Sabatino's
and said you had 11 other ones."
- His occupation has made it difficult at times
to have a family.
Now he is in the final weeks of an expensive divorce.
- Paying alimony to three women at one time
was a lot of dough.
As a matter of fact,
that's got to be some kind of record, right?
Three women, same family, alimony.
Good Lord.
I am so high on being Ric Flair each day of my life.
- You play that role enough,
that's like a cop going undercover,
and sometimes they get so lost in it,
they never come back.
- I probably neglected my family a little bit,
but it's been successful for me in promoting myself
and making me successful in professional wrestling.
- He doesn't apologize for being who he is.
The Nature Boy is Ric Flair. Ric Flair is the Nature Boy.
- The womanizer, the king,
the man that makes wrestling go round and round.
- I think I was very naive to it.
Just like, this is my dad. He has bleached blonde hair.
He brings his big gold belt to show and tell,
and that was normal for me.
- Are you okay? - Mm-hmm.
- I'm gonna miss you both.
The WWE isn't big enough for me.
[emotional music]
Vince came to me and said, "I'm going to start
"going with youth.
And I know they want you back,"
'cause WCW never stopped calling from the day I left.
"You can stay, and I'll have to push you down the card,
or you can leave on top." And I said, "I'll go back."
WCW, the Nature Boy is back to rock and roll.
Whoo!
- In 1993, Flair returned to WCW,
but times were changing.
- Thanks again, Ric.
I know you're on your way back to Charlotte.
- Thank you.
- In an era of grunge,
darker and edgier villains were in the spotlight.
Suddenly the flamboyant Nature Boy
wasn't the Man like he used to be.
- WCW had started the nWo, whose entire cause for being
was to strip down anything
and everyone that WCW ever held dear.
- By the time the NWO started emerging
and really blowing up
and overshadowing so much of the other talent,
I probably didn't look at guys like Ric Flair
the way a lot of other people did.
the Man is more of a coward than he is a fossil.
And that was my mistake.
And that hurt Ric.
- You suck. You, I hate your guts.
It's natural to say something if your feelings are hurt
or you think that you've been under-recognized
or you haven't been appreciated.
Bischoff, I ain't leaving.
- Wait a minute!
- When Ric was in the character
of the Nature Boy, he could do no wrong
and was the most confident person in the world.
But the human behind that was much more insecure.
- Ric Flair was put in positions
where he was shown as inferior.
- Now they're shaving Ric Flair's head!
- You don't change Ric Flair.
You don't move Tom Brady from quarterback to tight end.
Guy's winning you Super Bowls.
It's the same thing with Ric Flair.
Guy's a 16-time world champion.
- Whoo!
- When you allow the glory that a character receives
to become your own personal glory,
then any tragedy that that character receives
also has to become your personal tragedy.
And that's a trap that I think Ric Flair found himself in.
- I was broken.
I don't think but a few people understand
how much that impacted my life.
You know, trying to be written off.
- This is the last Nitro on the Turner Network,
and we're going out with a bang.
- As the doors of WCW closed in 2001,
the question remained.
Was this the end for the Nature Boy Ric Flair?
- Forever their names will be linked to greatness in WCW.
- And tonight, he and Ric Flair
are gonna finish off Nitro.
- I remember the night of the last WCW Nitro.
It was weird.
Seeing him come out in just a black t-shirt
and a short mom cut
just kind of threw me for a loop for a little bit.
I was like, "Oh."
You can kind of see in his face that, like,
this isn't the Ric Flair I kinda grew up with.
He just almost looked like a shell of his former self.
- Sting defeats Ric Flair here on the final telecast
on WCW Monday Nitro.
- There was a small part of me thinking like,
"Damn, this might be the last time
we ever see Ric Flair wrestle."
- I don't like anything about that last Nitro
except that it closed.
Vince called me about a year later and said,
"What are you gonna do?"
I said, "I don't know." I hadn't thought about it.
Right now, I'm just going out to the country club at 5:00.
Depending on what kind of mood I'm in, sometimes at 4:00.
He said, "You want to come back to work?"
and I said, "Yeah, I'd love to."
- In 2002, Ric Flair returned to WWE,
but his trademark swagger
that made the Nature Boy so iconic was gone,
and his confidence was shot.
- I was down on myself. I just walked away, saying,
"God, you could do so much better.
Why don't you get it, Ric?"
And it hurt. No pain.
Just anxiety, right?
I've wrestled a couple of matches
where I couldn't feel my hands from anxiety.
I'd pinch myself.
- When you no longer think that you're the Man,
then the very building blocks that created the Nature Boy
kinda ceased to exist.
- A villain needs to have self-confidence.
A villain needs to know that he could do anything
and beat anyone.
Once you take that away, the villain becomes vulnerable,
and now it's not a villain anymore.
Now that villain is just like you and me.
- What Flair needed was inspiration.
- You see, in this industry, just like in life,
everything evolves.
And what you see in this ring before you
is the greatest example of evolution you will ever see.
- Evolution was a new four-man faction,
including main event stalwart Triple H,
legendary icon Ric Flair,
and newcomers Batista and Randy Orton.
- Evolution was based kinda on the Four Horsemen.
- So whether you like it or not, learn to love it.
- Four guys dress nice. The ladies love them.
- What made the dynamic of Evolution so special
is that they weren't all on the same plane.
You had Ric Flair. He's kind of the mentor.
He's kind of looking out for everybody.
- That was one of the luckiest things
I had early in my career was him.
Took me under his wing. I learned a lot from Ric.
- I was all for it, but it took me a while to figure out.
Self-confidence issues.
- He didn't have the confidence in himself,
but Batista, myself, and Hunter
had the confidence for him.
- And standing before you, Evolution with all the gold.
- And Ric was a part of something
that was the top of the business,
so Ric felt big.
- Whoo! It's LA, bitch.
We're going down to the Strip to party--whoo!
With a champ.
- Ric felt like, "Okay, this is on me.
I'm the top dog again."
- Ric played the part. Ric was the part
and never forgot it.
- All night long! Whoo!
- In Evolution, Flair found new life
doing what he did best:
breaking the rules.
- And a low blow.
- It was a huge plus in my life,
you know, to kind of be where I was a year ago
and kind of down on the business
and, you know, not really happy with myself and my role,
and now things just keep getting
bigger and better for me.
- When he got that groove back,
look out, man.
- Flair's done it! Flair's done it!
The Nature Boy is the intercontinental champion!
- It brought new life into him.
- Whoo. - Whoo!
- Whoo!
- We're having a whoo fest. - Oh, my gosh.
- Whoo! Whoo!
Whoo!
I was back here, wrestling full time, and it was fun.
- The maestro, the Man for four decades.
- He's been in our lives for so long,
but he's been remarkably consistent.
- 16-time world heavyweight champion.
- With Ric Flair now in the twilight of his career,
something unexpected happened.
The bad guy had become beloved.
- The level of respect that you have paid me is unbelievable.
- My dad has always been a bad guy.
The difference is, now he's beloved
because he's that respected, because he is the industry.
- So when it got to the end and you went,
"Oh, he may not get to be that guy
I loved to boo anymore."
- And I love being the Nature Boy!
- Nobody really wants to let that go.
- To appreciate him now so much just
for everything that he's done.
- It no longer became about hero-villain.
It just became about contribution,
which was as much, if not more
than any other name that you could mention.
- The chairman of the WWE, Mr. McMahon, made the mandate
that the next match that Flair lost,
he would retire.
- The next match that you lose, Ric,
will be your last.
And Ric insisted that he needed to beat the best,
because to be the man, you've got to beat the Man.
- Shawn Michaels,
I want to wrestle you at WrestleMania.
- And if Ric couldn't beat Shawn Michaels,
then Ric didn't want to do this anymore.
- From my standpoint,
it was something that I really took seriously.
I can show the love and appreciation
that I had for the guy that I watched growing up.
It would be my honor to wrestle you at WrestleMania.
- In 2008, Ric Flair's farewell match
was a fitting celebration of an epic career.
- Tonight, we celebrate Nature Boy Ric Flair.
- Whoo!
- The look on Shawn Michael's face tells a story.
Flair wants to fight.
- My God, what a shot!
all: One, two, three.
[match bell chimes]
- It's one of my fondest memories.
- Over 70,000 fans paying their respects
to the greatest to ever lace a pair of boots.
- I was blown away, like, to see the respect,
and have the farewell that he did.
It was incredible.
[emotional music]
- To have that reception
was really the ultimate achievement.
- The WrestleMania farewell
closed an important chapter in the book of Ric Flair.
But the Nature Boy wasn't done just yet.
- Last night, I wrestled
my very last match at WrestleMania.
You shouldn't be sad about the fact
that you're not gonna see me out here.
You should really rejoice in the fact
that I have had the greatest wrestling career
in the history of pro wrestling!
[cheers and applause]
- Ric Flair's one-of-a-kind personality
is still influencing society.
- Stylin' and profilin'.
- Perhaps no superstar in history
has more influence on pop culture than Ric Flair.
- Can I get two claps and a Ric Flair?
all: Whoo!
- Whoo! - Whoo!
- He is so influential, people doing the Ric Flair strut
and whooing during games.
all: Whoo!
- I don't think I ever would have realized
how much that would have transcended
and become such an amazing part of pop culture.
- Whoo! To be the man,
you've got to beat the Man, okay?
- Rolex-wearin'... all: Whoo!
- Kiss-stealing... all: Whoo!
- Wheeling, dealing... all: Whoo!
- Limousine-riding... all: Whoo!
- Ric Flair. all: Whoo!
- Son of a gun. all: Whoo!
- It endeared him to many people.
Post Malone wanted to meet him. [laughs]
- Post Malone, my man. Whoo!
all: Whoo!
- * Whoo! I got the Ric Flair *
* Limousine-riding, jet-flying, kiss-stealing *
* Wheeling, dealing son of a gun *
- All those records are dope.
All of those can be directly attributed
to how Flair made us feel.
His relevancy is unmatched.
There has never been someone as loved or hated
but followed as Ric Flair.
- Whoo! Whoo!
- He's such a GOAT that he was relevant to me
when I was 5; he's relevant to me at 45.
That's a 40-year span of being
one of the absolute best villainous characters
in a sports and entertainment world.
- I love women.
I'll take that as a compliment. Whoo!
- He appealed to the different senses of entertainers
and athletes that made you continually like him.
- Whoo!
I influenced culture. [laughs]
- * Heyo *
[dramatic music]
* *
- A two-time hall of famer,
the Nature Boy's incredible legacy inside the ring
shines through a new Flair these days.
- Charlotte Flair was built for the grand stage.
- Bow down to the Queen.
- Known as the Queen, his daughter, Charlotte Flair,
possesses the same narcissistic traits
as her father.
- No one compares to me.
Whoo!
- Whoo!
- As good as Ric Flair was,
how head and shoulders he was above everybody at his time,
I think the same goes to Charlotte.
- My daughter does stuff now that nobody can do.
- This is incredible!
- The best female athlete in the history of our business.
- When you talk about the pride that Ric Flair has had...
- $1,000 shoes, big Rolex watches.
- Now we realize that he's showing pride
in what may be his greatest creation.
And it wasn't the alligator shoes.
It was Charlotte.
- A 12-time women's champion.
- Well, I'm like, I'm 5'10",
I'm blonde, and I'm super athletic.
What is there not to like?
Oh, yeah, but my last name's Flair.
I am a franchise player.
- Custom-made from head to toe.
- A genuine superstar.
- The greatest wrestler of all time.
- That's what he always told me.
You have to be unapologetic.
Long live the Queen!
- Whoo! The Nature Boy is here to stay forever and ever.
Whoo!
- So what are we to make
of the Nature Boy Ric Flair?
- You pattern your life after Ric Flair,
and you'll be someone.
- He believed he was the best 'cause he was the best.
I believe he was the best
'cause he told me he was the best.
It's a circle like that. It's weird.
- Really hard to believe that so much man
could be wrapped in such a good-looking package.
- He was cocky. He was arrogant.
And he was great at making me hate his guts.
- If you're a lawyer
who wishes he was making the money I'm making,
you better sit down and shut up!
- He insulted us. He made us jealous.
- My shoes cost more than your house.
- But above all, he always entertained us.
- Bright lights, big city, it is Nature Boy!
- It doesn't matter
if he's the dirtiest player in the game.
It doesn't matter how full of himself he is.
It doesn't matter if you want what he has.
- [laughing]
- He's Ric Flair.
- I'm a kiss-stealing, wheeling, dealing,
limousine-riding,
jet-flying son of a gun.
With me, what you see is what you get.
Hasn't changed in 72 years.
[laughing]
- He didn't think about it. He just did it.
I'm gonna make you hate me,
and I'm gonna do it every single night.
Was my dad justified?
He's a 16-time world heavyweight champion.
You tell me.
- Diamonds are forever,
and so is Ric Flair.
[echoing] Whoo!