Sean Waltman Provides More Details On Getting Fired By WCW For Pulling Ric Flair's Trunks Down
Sean Waltman has told the story many times over about when he was fired from WCW via a FedEx letter delivered to his home. But it turns out that wasn't the first time Waltman was fired from WCW, only to be re-hired minutes later.
On his X-Pac 1,2,360 podcast, Waltman re-told the story of how pulling down Ric Flair's trunks led to him, briefly, getting fired from WCW.
"Scott [Hall] and I wrestled, we had a match on Nitro live with Harlem Heat and it was from Amway Arena in Orlando," said Waltman. "And I have zero excuses for this, it was really stupid and I was just out of my mind sometimes out there. I spin-kicked Booker, took his head off with a spin-kick, I was about two-feet from him anyways, and started crotch-chopping Stevie Ray on the outside the ring and said, 'Suck my d*** mother-f***er' [laughs] so loud like everyone in the building heard it.
"Obviously, they've missed like a million shots every Nitro and of all the shots to not miss, that's the one they didn't miss. So yeah, I got back from the ring and Eric [Bischoff] was like 'Good match.' Then he had this look on his face and he said the words 'Suck my d*** mother-f***er?' and I went 'Oh' cause I forgot that that happened. And then I kind of gave him some bulls**t excuse like , 'I was caught up in the moment.' No excuse. Zero excuse."
Waltman says that Bischoff took heat from the Turner higher-ups for his profanity being so audible. Shortly afterwards there was a WCW talent meeting that centered around the use of colorful language on TV that was spurred by Waltman's outburst. But Waltman says he was late and ended up missing the meeting which landed him in more hot water.
"So then fast forward to a couple weeks later I pull Ric [Flair's] pants down [in a match], it wasn't even a big deal," stated Waltman. "Honestly, Ric Flair's ass has been shown a million times. But it was just a moment, Eric had already gotten a lot of sh** from standards and practices, so it was just a moment I didn't even think twice about pulling him down like that.
"I got back and Eric said, 'You're in breach of contract.' Then he explained to me the whole thing. I got pretty mad and upset about it and honestly I think at the time I deflected some of that on Ric. Like, I got mad at Ric about it like if it was Ric's fault somehow [laughs]... Funny thing about that, I was supposed to have a match like 20 minutes later with DDP and put him over. So immediately Dallas goes to Eric, 'But he's supposed to me over on TV!' BOOM! Re-hired immediately."
Waltman had another interesting connection to Flair by way of the NWO's parody of the Four Horsemen. Waltman portrayed Ric Flair in the 1997 skit which was one of the most memorable in WCW history and was to set up the NWO vs. Four Horsemen WarGames match at Fall Brawl.
"It was something I thought was sort of silly, and then we did it and I thought it was great after the fact you know," said Waltman. "I thought every parody-like skit or segment ever done after that was copying off of that and the other famous parodies I may or may not have been involved in. I was like 'Oh. This is stupid.' Every single one of them. It was always to me a copy off of something we did in WCW?.
"What I think is regretful is the Horsemen not getting their come-up-ings, they never did. Cause that thing was incredibly effective. That parody thing we did, I mean people wanted to kill us, the Carolinas, in all that you know Horsemen country, they hated our guts. I mean they changed the whole main event for WarGames to NWO versus Horsemen...That should have been at least the start of them finally getting their pay back from us and really they never got sh** back on us. That was the whole problem with that...We were just concerned with making this thing entertaining and it was."
In the WarGames match, Curt Hennig entered the match last and ended up turning on the rest of the Horsemen to join the NWO. That match also took place in "Horsemen Country" in North Carolina and the NWO prevailed when Steve McMichael surrendered on behalf of the Four Horsemen.
Sources: X-Pac 1,2,360