Ric Flair Says Charlotte "Said What She Felt" In Fiery WWE RAW Promo
In part two of his 72nd birthday week celebration interview, two-time WWE Hall of Famer and 16-time world champion Ric Flair was on The Wrestling Inc. Daily where he and Wrestling Inc. Managing Editor Nick Hausman charted out Flair's illustrious Hall of Fame career. Flair commented on teaming up with Triple H, Randy Orton and Batista as part of Evolution.
"Yeah, just fabulous guys. Randy and Dave coming in so young, and I see Randy all the time now," Flair noted. "That was 21 years ago. Is that not amazing? How fun is that? We called his dad the other day together. This is another thing that puts heat on you.
"Number one, to still be on TV, that's heat, and then to be the father of the greatest female wrestler of all time, that's really heat. Not from Bob Orton or Randy but I'm talking about guys from my era if they have children or are in similar situations,. But she demonstrated again last night how great she is. She doesn't need my help. I just want to hang around."
Ric also commented on Charlotte's promo on RAW where she forcefully told him to go home. Ric noted how real the promo was and expressed how proud he is of her.
"She said what she felt, and that's what made it real," Ric admitted. "Think about it, how many people have their 72 year old or 71 year old father hanging around all the time? Nobody. I left home when I was 15 and never reported back in. It's great. God, I'm so proud of her."
Ric recalled a trip down to Florida in 2012 with his daughter Ashley. At the time, Ashley did not have a real interest in pro wrestling and Flair explained how she wound up in WWE.
"I was going through all this stuff, and I admitted in my mind I wasn't going to go back to my wife. And I just left town without telling," Ric recalled. "I had just given up on that, and I just left. And she (Ashley) wanted to go. Of course, Reid always wanted to go. I got down there and Johnny Ace, who I was sitting with and who's the head of talent relations at that time and a very close friend of mine, he's going to Ashley, 'Why aren't you in the business?' And she looked at me.
"He excused himself, and she got up and walked away. And I just kept my eyes on her, and there she was thinking to herself. And she came back around 30 minutes at the most and said, 'Dad, do you think I can do this?' I looked at her. I said, 'I'm sure you'd be great at it, but do you really want to do this?' That was in April for WrestleMania in Miami, and she was at the PC in July, not the Performance Center. She was in Tampa with Steve Kern in July."
Charlotte said on an episode of RAW Talk that she was tired of being viewed as Ric Flair's daughter. Ric talked about how Charlotte had that stigma follow her.
"It's incredible. Here's my problem and it probably isn't a fair statement, but it's the way I feel, boys are boys," Ric stated. "Your son wants to get in the business. That's fine. It's a guy. Your daughter, you're always going to be sensitive to what goes down. When it's a guy, you can expect them to be able to handle it because if this is what you're going to do, I can't control it. Well if it is a girl, your daughter, and then you you see all these different people putting up obstacles that aren't real saying that I made it easy. She's Ric Flair's daughter. It's a real life scenario.
"What transpired last night (from this week's RAW) is really the way it is, and that's because they keep having me be on TV. If I wasn't here, I'd be forgotten. Nothing was easy for her. It made it harder. Being my daughter made it harder for her. People are jealous. It's just simple. It's human nature. They're jealous. They don't want to see her succeed. I knew that she could do it if she wanted to do it. How many families do two people emerge to the level of success that we have? It's me with her all the time. Everybody looks at that as being the rub. It ain't a rub. I'm getting the rub from her now, but people don't see it like that, and it's like, 'God, how do I ever get away from this?' Regardless of the fact that she's ten times better than I was ever in a ring. It's still that stigma.
"Someday she'll look back on it and say, 'God what a great time,' but I feel the pain because I'm sensitive. I'm her dad, and I want everything to be perfect. And I want her to go home at the end of the night and just relax. To even see her during the day working with the other girls on the construction of whatever they're doing or rehearsing, she is so intense and is not going to ever be satisfied unless the result is absolutely perfect. And that is one of the reasons she's so good at what she does. The other is that she is so gifted and such a great athlete, but she takes it all, and you could tell in the ring. She just wants to be great. She doesn't have to prove anything to anybody anymore, but every night for her is a different challenge, which is one of the reasons she's so damn good at it."
At the beginning of this year, Ric had turned heel when he aligned himself with Lacey Evans. Hausman asked Flair how the heel turn came about.
"You're talking to the wrong guy. You need to get that interview with somebody in the office," Ric joked. "I have no idea. I just got to TV, and they said it to me. I was as much in shock as you were. I came to Legends Reunion to be a legend.
"Next thing I know I'm managing Lacey, no explanation, and she's such a nice girl. She wanted it so bad, but life is life, and I told her I wouldn't trade out your pregnancy for wrestling for one second. She was hurt a couple days, but she's gone home and realized that, 'hey, I'm having a baby.' Ultimately in life, is there anything bigger than family?"
Visit RicFlairShop.com for all your official Ric Flair merchandise and gifts! You can follow Ric on Twitter @RicFlairNatrBoy. You can find the full audio from the second part of Flair's interview via the embedded players below: