Ric Flair Talks Not Knowing How Big Of A Story His Hospitalization Was, Flight Attendants, More
30 For 30: Nature Boy is days away from its premiere and anticipation is at an all-time high. Ric Flair was recently a guest on the Cheap Heat Podcast and discussed some of the things we'll see in the documentary.
The film will air on ESPN on Tuesday, Nov. 7 at 10 p.m. and will offer a three-dimensional look at the life and career of arguably the greatest professional wrestler of all time. It has been well-received by the people who have seen advanced screenings. Flair discussed if there were any parts of the documentary that were difficult for him to watch.
"The only hard part was what I experienced with the stuff with Reid," he said, referring to the death of his son. "I expected negative comments from my kids. That didn't surprise me and I couldn't be upset about it. What people need to understand is that I am not a Doctor, or Lawyer, I am a Wrestler."
Flair said the film will also showcase a lot about his jet-setting lifestyle when he was at the height of his career. His life as a pro-wrestler brought him all around the world.
"Just until the last 15 years or so, if you didn't work you didn't get paid and if you are the World Champion, NWA World Champion, you worked and that was it," he said. "You can be in San Juan one night; literally, I was thinking about my worst week in travel. San Juan to St Louis; St Louis to Sydney, Australia; Sydney, Australia to Auckland, New Zealand; Auckland, New Zealand to Tokyo, Japan. How is that for a week? And I wrestled an hour every night. I was excited; I wouldn't have wanted to miss it. But looking back on it now, you can see why I had wanted a cocktail. That is a lot of air time, and the Flight Attendants back then were fun. It's a different time period now; they are all my age."
Flair also discussed his health scare from over the summer. After undergoing surgery to remove part of his bowel, he was hospitalized for over a month. He had an external pacemaker inserted to help his heart beat normally. He said he didn't know how big of a story his hospitalization was.
"I didn't because I know a lot of people came to visit me that I don't even remembered," Flair said. "They gave me a 20% chance of living, and all my kids came. Ashley [Charlotte] Flair came all the way down from China and the Doctor's told her to go say goodbye to your dad. They gave me a 20% of living, and of course I don't remember any of it at the time because I think I already induced the coma, but when I got home and got my phone finally, which they wouldn't give me because still when I first woke up I wasn't necessarily me yet, but i had 376 texts on my phone and I still haven't returned them all.
"The reason being is that it isn't because I was being discourteous, but when you text someone back and tell them that you appreciate their text and that I am doing much better, you know that they will respond back if that makes sense. I started that and did it with about ten people, and I said that I just can't do this. I don't know how to group text people, so what I did was I called them all and brought them up to speed; it's much easier to do that, so there's still people I haven't thanked yet, but I will see them once I become more active in my life. I have some appearances in November and December so I will see a lot of people and I hope to be at 100% by WrestleMania where I will see everybody."
If you use any of the quotes in this article, please credit the Cheap Seats Podcast with an H/T to Wrestling Inc. for the transcription.
Source: Cheap Heat Podcast
Peter Bahi contributed to this article.