411’s WWE Evil Episode Seven Report: Ric Flair

-This one should be interesting since Flair is the only one in this series that is no longer on the best of terms with the WWE. Obviously, this was shot when he was still under contract and before the Dark Side Episode that made him toxic. Flair has also been in the news thanks to his Twitter beef with Mark Madden that was the biggest story on my Twitter Sunday night until Will Smith slapped Chris Rock. As I have mentioned countless times I live in SW PA and Mark Madden is from this area and I listen to his show along with 93.7 The Fan to get my local sports fix. In this case I am on Madden’s side as all he tweeted was he left Flair’s podcast and thanked them for the opportunity. You could sense there was something more to it, but Madden left it alone. Flair then had to just make it known he canned Madden and that sparked the social media war. Madden is not one to back down from a verbal exchange and we got what we got. Anyway, let’s get back on topic as after this there is only one episode to go. Let’s get to it!

-Run Time: 47:25

-As a reminder John Cena is the narrator for this series.

-Ric Flair is the self professed dirtiest player in the game and Austin says Flair was great at making him hate his guts. Sadly, he is still pretty good at that apparently. He is called a Scarface like character. “I spent more money on spilled booze than you made in the last 6 months.” Classic! Shawn Michaels: “Naitch was really living all of that.” Flair: “Paying alimony to three women is a lot of money. That has to be some kind of record.” MIKE GOLIC! Sweet! Charlotte: “He loved the glamorous life. Who doesn’t?”

-Show opening!

-Rosenberg tells us villains drive the story and we get footage from Scarface, The Karate Kid, Rocky and Superman. Okay, shut it down! We aren’t worthy of this series. Shoemaker tells us the best villains are the ones who know what they have to offer and aren’t afraid to talk about it (Wolf of Wall Street footage). In an era all about excess, Flair stole the show. He wasn’t a demon or monster, he was a real man and he was better than you according to Rosenberg.

-Every villain has an origin story Cena tells us and they cut to The Dark Knight and Ledger as The Joker saying “Do you want to know how I got these scars.” I love this show! The Dark Knight is my favorite movie of all time and now I want to go watch it again. Ric tells us that he thinks he was born as The Nature Boy. His birthday present every year was going to wrestling shows. He was adopted and says he couldn’t have been adopted by two finer people. His dad was a doctor and mom had a masters and he was very hard to handle. He was in 7th grade and used bed sheets to climb out his window and hopped into a car his friend (who couldn’t drive) borrowed (stole) from his parents and they went to a girls’ slumber party. Ric was arrested on Father’s Day. Some gift! It was an experience and you grow up fast. Sadly, I don’t think Ric has grown up yet. He was told it was either military school or boarding school.

-Ric was sent to boarding school and he talks about how you learned you either made it on your own or you didn’t. Ninety percent of the kids were from wealthy homes and that is the life Ric wanted, but he needed to find a way to get it and he wasn’t going to be a doctor. He thanks God he found wrestling.

-Verne Gagne: Some great footage of Verne running people to death in the barn in freezing Minneapolis while explaining that they have to learn to fall or they will get hurt and if they are injured they can’t wrestle and make money. Flair says once he got through what Verne did to them he could get through anything.

-Ric was wrestling for a few years and nothing really stood out about him. He tells us he met a guy in a bar that had a plane and offered to fly them instead of driving 3000 miles a week. After a month of flying, it happened Oct 4, 1975. They ran out of gas at 6,000 feet and there was no reserve so they crashed. He remembers being loaded in a military ambulance and recalls them saying, “I think we are going to lose this one,” and he figured they were talking about him, but it was the pilot. Flair had a broken back and others were left paralyzed.

-Flair survives, but is hospitalized. He dropped a ton of weight as he went from 255 lbs to 180. He started thinking of “The Nature Boy” Buddy Rogers and Ric coped that style and made it his own. What he did is compared to a Phoenix rising from the ashes. By 1978 the Nature Boy gimmick was working and Flair’s confidence was rising. He carried a swagger about himself and had a strut. Shoemaker talks about Flair showing up in suits and how you see guys today (Steph Curry and Lebron James) doing the same and he credits a little of that to Ric Flair. Ric says he saw what Joe Namath was wearing and he wanted to be better. He jokes that Rolex owes him a commercial for all the free promotion he gave them.

-Shawn Michaels says the 80s were a perfect time for Ric Flair. He is compared to Gordon from Wall Street and of course we have the famous clip from the movie where we are told that greed is good. Flair also understood what worked in the ring and that was the villain getting his ass kicked the entire match to make the good guy look like a threat and beast. They touch on Flair’s signature spots and that brings in Mike Golic. They talk about Flair’s vicious side and how he lived up to The Dirtiest Player moniker. No matter how much he got beat, he always found a way to leave with the title and that only made you hate him more.

-Trash Talk: “His ability to talk shit is unparalleled.” That made for a perfect counter and rivalry to Dusty Rhodes. Austin: “I wanted to see Dusty Rhodes beat the tar out of him.” Austin continues that Dusty was the common man and as a fan of his there was nobody worse than Ric Flair. We get a back and forth with them cutting promos on each other and it’s magic. Flair mentions they wrestled in The Orange Bowl in front of 40,000 people and did huge business.

-The Cold War: They discuss how wrestling used that for easy heat and that gives us Nikita Koloff. Everyone hated Flair but at least he was American. That leads to the famous angle where Dusty saves Flair from The Russians, only for Flair to turn on Dusty and the Horsemen break his leg inside a steel cage that caused a riot. “It took us an hour to get out of the ring. We had heat.” No kidding!

-The 4 Horsemen: Ric says it was simple, “four guys that could work and talk.” David LaGreca throws up the 4 fingers and says that’s all you have to do and someone will know what it means. They weren’t the biggest or toughest, but they were the most tight knit. They became the blueprint for every faction to follow: DX, nWo, The Shield, New Day are all shown. With the Horsemen by his side Flair won Championship after Championship.

-Flair gets away from The Horsemen a bit in the late 80s (well, Arn and Tully were in WWF) and Ricky Steamboat is waiting. They proceed to have 3 of the greatest matches of all time and it showed again that Ric is every bit as good of a wrestler as he says he is.

-Secretly inside everyone wanted to be Ric Flair and one of the talking heads admits he has a Rolex on his wrist and a $150,000 car because of Ric Flair. DDP says Hulk was selling milk and cookies while Ric was selling sex, drugs, and rock and roll. Hogan had cartoons, but couldn’t walk into every club and make every woman think they could ride Space Mountain. THEY ACTUALLY SHOW THE REAL SPACE IN FLORIDA. Sadly, when I went in November to Disney, it broke down while I was waiting in line. The Ric Flair character was so strong it overtook his life.

-1991 Ric Flair hits the WWF and wins The WWF Title when he wins The 1992 Royal Rumble. Sam Roberts calls Flair’s promo after The Rumble win the greatest of his career and focuses on Flair saying “this is the greatest moment of my life.” LaGreca says Ric is 100% committed to pro-wrestling.

-Flair says everything he has is because his name is Ric Flair, but the line between the character and man was gone. It wasn’t a gimmick and this was the life he was leading. Shawn tells us there was no pretend in anything you saw from Ric on TV. Ric laughs about waking up in Baltimore with two women and one telling him that he threw a Rolex in a bowl of spaghetti at the restaurant and said he had 11 more at home. He laughs again about having to pay 3 women at one time alimony. Dr. Phil compares it to being a cop undercover and getting lost in it. Charlotte says The Nature Boy is Ric Flair and he doesn’t apologize for who he is. She admits she was naive to it and what he did was normal to her.

-Jan 1993: Vince tells Ric that he wants to go with youth and he knows WCW wanted him back. He could stay and be pushed down the card or go out on top and back to WCW. He opted to go back and times were changing. Flair wasn’t the man like he used to be once the nWo hit. Bischoff says it overshadowed other talent and admits he didn’t look at Flair the way others did. He admits that was his mistake and he knows it hurt Ric. Flair dancing in his boxers and dropping elbows on imaginary wrestlers! RUSSO SHAVING FLAIR’S HEAD! Flair admits he was broken and only a few people understand how that impacted his life.

-The Final Nitro: The company closes the only way it can: Sting vs Flair. Kazeem says it was weird seeing Flair come out with short hair and wearing a black t-shirt. Sting gets the win and Kazeem was sad that it may have been the last time Flair wrestled. Flair says he hated that final night and the only good thing was the company closed.

-Vince gives him a call and he returns to WWE in late 2001. His confidence was shot and he was suffering from anxiety. The anxiety was so bad he had no feeling in his hands. They talk about how a villain needs confidence or he is just like everyone else.

-Evolution: HHH wanted his own Horsemen and that’s what we got. Flair was the mentor with HHH in the Flair from the 80s position and Orton and Dave as the young guns. Flair says he was all for it, but still didn’t have confidence. Flair, HHH and Orton helped give him that confidence back and it helped that Evolution was the top act in the company. Flair becomes an IC and Tag Champion and we see the Woo Fest with Kurt Angle. “I was back wrestling full time and it was fun.”

-Flair was now beloved as the respected legend even though he was always a bad guy. Nobody wanted to let go of what Flair was, so you couldn’t help but cheer him. It was no longer about hero or villain and was about contribution. That starts the angle where the next match Flair loses would be his last.

-WrestleMania 24: Flair vs. Michaels. This was fantastic as the story was that Shawn didn’t went to retire his idol until Flair forced his hand. Flair’s farewell match was a celebration and Shawn gave everything he had to make it a classic. “I’m sorry. I love you.” Shawn says it is one of his fondest memories and Charlotte was blown away by the respect and reception her father got.

-This is Ric Flair though so even a world-wide retirement isn’t going to last for him. We don’t mention that here though and go to Flair’s impact on pop culture as we see athletes, celebrities cut Flair promos to get fired up. This all great! Flair with Post Malone! Rappers writing tracks about Flair. Killer Mike says Flair was relevant to him when he was 5 and now when he is 45.

-His legacy shines through a new Flair these days: Charlotte! LaGreca says as good as Flair was, Charlotte is on that level. Flair calls her the best female athlete in the history of the business. Now Ric is showing pride in his greatest creation: Charlotte. They splice in what Charlotte said in the Sasha episode: “I’m 5’10”, blonde and super athletic. What’s not to like? Oh yeah, my last name is Flair.”

-We wrap with more classic Flair one liners: “my shoes cost more than your house.” Shoemaker: “He’s Ric Flair.” Flair: “With me it’s what you see is what you get and it hasn’t changed in 72 years.”

-This was really good but suffered a little for me from the fact that Flair has had already had numerous WWE released documentaries plus ESPN 30 for 30. That doesn’t hurt this one much, but you won’t get much new other than the talking heads from outside the WWE bubble gushing all over him. I am sure Flair had a blast filming this as he got to talk about himself and his daughter. I’m sure it also is an ego boost when he watches to see all the praise heaped on him. That is all good as the man deserves his flowers while he is here, but recent actions have show that he needs more than just praise and sadly anyone not down for the party seems to be getting cut out of his life. Again, I will mention how great it is to have scenes from movies and TV sliced into this as it helped illustrate the points the talking heads are making and connects wrestling to the rest of the pop culture world.

-Rankings: 1) Hogan 2) Flair 3) Orton 4) Banks 5) Miz 6) Stephanie 7) BOD. Thanks for reading!