Brian Knobbs On Ric Flair Not Drinking Anymore, Vince McMahon Story From Flair's Birthday Party
Brian Knobbs is the founder of Legends of Wrestling which brings together many of the all-time greats from the past for special events. Ric Flair has been a part of those shows in the past and considers Knobbs to be a good friend.
Knobbs joined our WINCLY podcast to talk about Flair and how they both are in similar positions after recent health scares.
When asked if he has any good Flair stories, Knobbs told one of when Flair, the Nasty Boys, Hulk Hogan and Vince McMahon all went to a club. There was a man who referred to himself as "Jewish Lightning" that kept bothering the crew, so after Vince left the rest of the boys took care of the guy. Flair then started cutting a promo on Knobbs and Sags had to jump over a table to separate the two.
Due to all of the pandemonium going on, Flair got thrown out of the club but left behind something very important.
"Ric left his [credit card] there and he got charged for everything ? the tables that were broken and the glasses. The bill was like $5,000.... It was all in good fun and back in the day, no grudges were held. The next day or two we were back joking again and having a good time in another city," said Knobbs.
Flair had a major health scare a couple of years ago and suffered from organ failure. He can no longer drink alcohol but Knobbs says he's still the same old Ric Flair even without the booze.
"He's the same. I'm in that situation too. You can only live the life of a Rolling Stone for so long and after a while it catches up to you," Knobbs said before adding that he had a scary health experience that forced him to slow down and he can't drink like he used to.
"You don't need alcohol and all that other crap to have a good time because you are you and Ric Flair is Ric Flair. When you're around him, Ric tells the best stories in the world and he's one of my best friends along with Hulk. They're just good people. I'm proud to say that some of the G.O.A.T.s are good friends of mine. There's Ric, there's Hulk, Bret Hart, Stone Cold, The Rock? they're all really good friends of mine."
Knobbs said this strong fraternity of brothers led to him launching Legends of Wrestling and Flair was a part of their show in Detroit this past weekend.
Knobbs was one of the many invited guests to Flair's surprise 70th birthday party in Atlanta a couple of weeks ago. He said he enjoys events like that because usually when so many former wrestlers get together, it's for a funeral. But this was a celebration of Flair's life.
"It was one of the best surprise parties I've ever been at. Everybody was there," Knobbs said before listing off the various wrestlers and athletes that were in attendance such as Ricky Steamboat, Triple H, Chris Jericho, Charles Barkley and Dennis Rodman.
Knobbs says that Shane McMahon took a picture of himself with the Nasty Boys and sent it to his father. Vince texted him back something like, "Stay away from those guys. I told you that before!"
"It was well overdue because he deserves every accolade he gets because he is the GOAT," Knobbs said of Flair. "He was doing hour broadways with everybody back in the day. If you're not in the wrestling business, you don't know how hard that is. But that's hard to do."
Wrestling Inc's full, exclusive interview with Knobbs was included in a recent episode of our WINCLY podcast. It can be heard via the embedded audio player at the bottom of this post. In it Knobbs discusses the WWE roster's reaction to Bret Hart's – WWE Hall of Fame attack, the legacy of The Hart Foundation, Hulk Hogan's road to redemption in WWE, Ric Flair's surprise party, why AEW is good for the pro wrestling business, David Arquette's return to pro wrestling and more.
You can check out past episodes of the WINCLY here. Subscribe to Wrestling Inc. Audio on iTunes or Google Play. Listen to the show via Spotify here or through TuneIn here.