The Breakfast Club - INTERVIEW: Ric Flair Speaks On His Final Match, Near Death Experiences, Mt. Rushmore Of Wrestling + More

Episode Date: October 16, 2023

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Wake that ass up early in the morning. The Breakfast Club. Morning everybody, it's DJ Envy, Charlamagne Tha Guy. We are The Breakfast Club. We got a special guest in the building. Come on now, the styling, profiling, limousine riding, jet flying, kiss stealing, wheeling and dealing, son of a gun. The nature boy, Ric Flair. Come on now. Morning. Good morning, sir. You get tired of hearing that? People just run up on you in the airport and just start screaming that all the time?

I love it. I love it. How are you doing today, first and foremost? I'm doing great, thank you. How are you? Great, too. You're doing good. Doing pretty well.

Thanks for having me on. Well, you're in town for Comic-Con, right? Yes. First ever Celebrity Mint. Tell us about that. You got these great cards here. Yeah. Those are actually gold, and there's silver there too.

And these are all silver. This one has a gold inlay in it. And they're made by Celebrity Mint out of Houston and distributed via eBay through them, basically all over. There will be for 10, 30 tomorrow. When you first started your wrestling career, did you see things like this?

Never. That you'd be trading cards with your... Never, never. Really? That's amazing. Never imagined, especially in silver or gold. I want to start from the beginning for people that don't know.

You know, this is always a story because kids grew up on wrestling, right? You grew up and you're seeing your first superhero was a wrestler and you wanted to be a wrestler and you got in trouble with your mom because you jumped off the kitchen table and you broke something you wasn't supposed to break. You put somebody in a kitchen table and you broke something. You put somebody in a 54-leg lock.

Yeah, you put somebody in a 54-leg lock. You broke somebody's leg. So what got you, Ric Flair, into wrestling? What made you say, I want to be a wrestler? So tell us that journey for people that don't know. Well, I grew up loving it, watching it, and I went to Minnesota to play football. And obviously, like every idiot that comes along that wants

to be in the fraternity you join a fraternity and forget about college so I had fun to fraternity and forgot to go to class back then all you do is all you do is go to class so you had to do that say just had to show up get your mind home but you know 30 below zero two mile walk from fraternity house i just just uh and then uh when i became academically eligible i was living with kemp patera 72 olympian and verne ganya awa was in minneapolis and uh said you want to be a wrestler i said god i love it but of course i'm to try it. And the rest is history.

I quit a couple of times. It was a lot more intense than I anticipated. What made you finally retire for good after 50 years? Well, I had that one match last year. You know, I still feel great. It's funny. People misunderstand when I say I wish I could wrestle again. I mean, I feel great. I'm probably one of the few guys that still with no hip replacements

or knee replacements or shoulder, and I feel great. So I could, but I – yeah, actually I could, but I won't. Now, when you first started wrestling – I didn't want to quit. You didn't want to. Vince McMahon's had his time. That's okay. So when you first started wrestling. I didn't want to quit. You didn't want to. Vince McMahon's had his time. That's okay. So when you first started wrestling, break us down because, you know,

you wanted to be different from everybody else, and you were different from everybody else. So what gave you that mind frame? What said, this is what I'm going to be. I'm going to wear these robes. I'm going to be fly. I'm going to be. That was after the airplane crash, 1975.

I crashed in an airplane, killed a guy, and paralyzed two other guys. While I was rehabbing, hopefully, hopeful of wrestling again, I met a guy named George Goddard. He said, why don't we make you a little bit like Buddy Rogers? Buddy was very popular in the 50s and 60s, nature of Buddy Rogers. So I just took that, and in the words of Harley Race, remember Harley? Flair took Rogers' gimmick to a whole new level. He lied to you. He had no idea who Harley Race was. He had no idea who that is. You survived the plane crash in 1975. You survived death a couple of times. When you survived a plane crash, how did your life change?

What is your mentality from that point on? Well, when you're younger, you don't think about it. I just thought, well, I made it. I was a little bit intimidated to fly again for the first time, but I got on one of those private jets today to get here to make sure I could be around time. What do they call it again? What jet are they? G-550 Cessna.

No, the little tiny one. A prop plane? Propeller? No, no, no. It's a jet, but there's no bathroom or anything. It's a... Not a Cessna? Not a...

No, it's a... Paper plane? I don't know what you're talking about. Not a damn paper plane. No, it's called a... Anyway, I would highly recommend it. G5, G4. You took it from the airport?

I took it from, I was in Columbus, Georgia last night at the hockey game. Vision, Vision Jet. And it was great. What a way to go. I may never fly commercial again. So when you crashed in the plane, did it like explode around you? No, we ran out of gas, so there was no explosion. But normally a small, it was a twin engine, Cessna 310.

Normally when you hit an orchard of trees or whatever they were called, the cartwheel plane, we were going so fast because we fell from 6,000 feet that we just tore down the whole damn orchard and landed in a railroad embankment that was train tracks on top of it just a half mile from the runway wow how many was on the plane six and three three survived and three died pilot died two are paralyzed and the three of us made it wow do y'all still have a bond the three that made it you have to have a bond now ah there's only two of us still alive yeah okay yeah we remain very close we don't live with each other or live close to each other anymore but we talk a couple times a year gotcha what do you miss

about wrestling if if anything the camaraderie the fun bright lights big city china club new york Bright Lights, Big City, China Club, New York City, China Club, Chicago. You love partying after. You love being famous. Yeah. The wrestling part of it is easy. Then going on afterwards,

then you got to hold your reputation. But that don't change for you though. You're the nature boy Rick Flair. I know it doesn't. You're famous

everywhere you go even now. I think so. I'm lucky enough to be here. How much practice did you guys have to do when it came to this? I don't practice. No? No.

There was no practice back then? You just work out and just, the match is at 8 and you're there? Yeah, because I'm a little different than a lot of guys. A lot of guys like to go out and, well, I'm not saying it, but later on because it's part of the deal now where the guys have to rehearse and all that. But I just was always, the old school, you got to hear the crowd. You can't rehearse something

that you don't know how the people are going to react to. And that's one of the problems today when the young kids, they had this match put together, they walk out the door and the fans aren't reacting the way they want it, because they don't have the experience, not door and the fans aren't reacting the way they wanted. Because they don't have the experience, not the ability, but don't have the experience, they can't change it around.

That's why sometimes they're not getting the reaction from the crowd they want. So when you were wrestling, there was no practice. It's two men in that match and whatever happened, happened. We knew the outcome and then... We just know from there. So when you get slapped in the face, it wasn't practice. It's like, oh. And you get slapped in the face. Yeah, we knew the outcome and then. Then we just know from there. So when you get slapped in the face, it wasn't practice.

Like, oh, this just slapped me in my face. Yeah, mm-hmm. I would tell him to. Wow. Yeah, hit me with brass knuckles. We used to hit each other with brass knuckles in the old days. Not the real brass knuckles, right? Busted ourselves open, we were called the hard ways.

Jesus Christ. You can break, instead of a bone right here, it's a real, really just clip it, a little open hole. Oh, so you don't even gotta hit hard, you Jesus Christ. You can break, you can break, this little bone right here is real, really just a little open up. Oh so you don't even gotta hit hard, you just a little. Yeah. Okay. Then I was always, had that surgical little thing right here.

That was the best part of my work. Get me to my blade and I'm good. You had a blade in your fingers too? A blade in your, so you could have missed and went too far but i have a couple times y'all got to have some really nice relationships with you we're not thinking the same thing accidentally cut somebody with a blade and not be the person not be upset at you for real oh no i was never cutting anybody else i just cut myself oh yeah okay i get what you said i have cut some guys but some guys, but they knew it was coming.

So you must think this new wrestling is so soft with what you were dealing with. It's not soft because they do—nothing is ever soft. It's just a different time. It's like Lawrence Taylor. Could Lawrence play right now? Are you kidding? He'd be suspended every game. He'd be fined so much right now.

Yeah, or Dick Butkus, who just passed away. Yeah, Lawrence could play. The rules of this change. every game he'd be fine so much right now yeah i mean or dick butkus who just passed away yeah the rules of this change it's still a very difficult very physically demanding sport these guys are doing stuff now where they're jumping off tables and ladders and i only did i only did that a couple of times so what was your last match like for you when you fought uh jeff jared and it was great except for the fact I didn't anticipate you know I psyched myself off I know it was dehydrated and I went out there and we put together what I thought was a real match wasn't ever gonna be a hmm a masterpiece but would put together the match then I got real lightheaded and

there about five minutes in the match and I said to one of the guys I'm not feeling good well it just sent it went around the ring like he's saying like he's heart's bad or whatever right so but we got it straight now but I was just funny I just dehydrated and under the underdraer came back to the dressing room maybe drink three Gatorades and I went over to Kid Rocks and partied with the kid all night. So I was fine. But I saw you say you wish you had picked a different person to have your last match against.

No, no, that's a misinterpretation. These damn podcasts, you say it and it comes out wrong. There's a guy that's still active today, Ricky Morton from the Rock and Roll Express. If I were to have a singles match, not a tag, they wanted to have a tag match because they didn't think I could

make it through a singles. If I was going to have a singles match now, it would be with Ricky Morton. He's still active and he's doing great. He was so good. And I'm a much better bad guy than I am a good guy. Oh, absolutely.

But you always were kind of like that. You're the bad guy, but then you're like the bad guy people root for. Yeah. You know what I mean? That's out of respect over the years. Yeah. Back then, did you make a lot of money wrestling or was it more for the endorsements

outside of actually there were no endorsements back then it's all wrestling income really yeah because i did wwe is the one or wwf vince is the one that started all the marketing where the guy started making as much money from selling lunch boxes and action figures and stuff like that as they did wrestling yeah i grew up in south carolina i was telling them earlier like there you go god's country i grew up on nwa yeah you know then uh wcw uh i was born in charleston but raised in a small town called monk's corner monk's corner south carolina that's the name of that place they used to wrestle in king um kingstree kingstree yeah andstree, yeah.

God, it was hot. 120 degrees in that building. Oh, absolutely. Every Friday night. Kingstree, South Carolina. Yeah. Now, I want to go back to your last match mentally. How do you prepare yourself to say, okay, this is my last match?

And did it really feel that way? I just focused on it. What it did is I had four months to really get myself in shape. I mean, I work out pretty hard anyway, but to really get myself in, and I had made up my mind that I would be as good as shape, not cosmetically, obviously,

because I'm a cosmetic nightmare. That's not true. One of the ladies out there said, he's so cute. Definitely said that. One of the ladies out there said, he's so cute. Definitely said that. One of the ladies out there said that. She hasn't seen me without my shirt since my surgery.

Without my shirt, not so cute since my surgery. But I just, I was ready. I just framed that fall forward. And, you know, you know, you remember Vince Lombardi's favorite saying is fatigue makes cowards of us all. You know what I mean?

I would never worry about getting tired because I was always in better shape. So I actually got myself in as good a shape as I was in 1974. I was doing 500 free squats and stuff like that. You still work out to this day? Yes. Really? When I'm home, I've been gone quite a bit. But I go up and train with John Cena's trainer, Rob.

I always wonder, because you always talk about your steroid use before, right? But you never had the physique of the- No, I didn't take it. I took steroids when I remember it, too. Kind of hard at 4 a.m. to remember to take your pills exactly when you're. Yeah. That's the only way you get that big physique like that?

No, you get it through hard work. Okay. But I wrestled so much, I didn't pay as much attention to my diet. Because in wrestling, I did a lot of hour matches. And when I was younger, I would wrestle 300 hour matches a a year so you get mentally here and then you can eat and drink what you want and then all of a sudden your metabolism changes you retire

you got you got to be careful you know what I mean so are you still surprised that some of your catchphrases still people are saying now to this day and you know even like you know some of the rappers still want you in their videos make songs like offset who was here this week his album's out you know right now yeah also was here a couple days ago yeah he's a great guy does that still surprise you when when these rappers call you things like that not really i'm a doja cat number two you know with my catch line nobody could be first but anyone could be next. Yeah, I love Offset. He's great. Metro Boomin, those are great guys.

Why are you laughing? Metro Boomin's got another one out now. Well, yeah, Offset album came out today. Yeah, it came out today. Oh, it came out today? It's out right now, yep. You said something about Doja Cat. You like Doja Cat too?

Yeah, I'm in her new song. Which one? Paint the Town? It just came out. I got to hear it. The opening is none of you can be first, but anyone of you can be next. Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. She sampled your voice. Yeah.

Yeah, yeah, absolutely. Okay, got you. Now, you had a ruptured intestine, too, in 2017. Yeah. Then you got put into a coma, respiratory heart failure, pneumonia, all kind of stuff. How did that— Two total kidney failure, everything. Two total—Jesus Christ.

Mm-hmm. How did that near-death experience impact you? That changed my life. Okay. Yeah, that when I come out of that, because I couldn't walk or anything, I didn't have any memory for six months. That was when I decided that I needed to make sure

that everybody that mattered to me in my life, I told. Wow. When I'm not selling a religious, I'm not going religion on you. I mean, obviously, we all have our own religion, and I believe in God very strongly, but it really made me aware of telling people that I like because you never know.

I'm living proof you never know. I was just sitting at a bar, like I will be tonight with these guys, and all of a sudden I got a pain in my stomach. I didn't wake up for 31 days. Wow. I don't even remember going to the hospital. Damn. Yeah.

Do you remember the first person you told you love when you finally was able to? Well, it must have been my wife, Wendy. She's on her way here now. She's actually going from here to Iceland Sunday and then over to donate time in Israel for two weeks. Wow. With the issues over there.

So I guess it would be her. Hogan said that I looked at him and said, get me a six-pack of beer. Yeah, they said, believe it or not, they said, which you'll find humor in, besides from all the issues of me almost dying, they said, brother, I went through a bad, bad case of the DDT. No booze.

Oh, no drinking. It was vibrating. And it wasn't because I was sick. It was strapping me down. Does it matter at this point? When you get to this age and you've done it all, do you feel like, okay, you know what? I'm going to listen to the doctors.

I'm not going to do no drinking. No, I don't pay attention to it because here's the deal. I want to live now because guys like Ryan Fitterman and these people here at Celebrity Minute are making me a lot more money than I made wrestling. They did with you before. They won it all. Yeah, and so now I want, you know,

I've paid $2 million in alimony and $2 million in penalty and interest. I mean, my story's interesting. If I give you the real story. Million and a half to lawyers, four divorces. So this kind of stuff. You gotta get back. You gotta get your money back.

You gotta get your money back. You gotta get your money back. You can save yourself the- I make more money than Ryan ever made wrestling. That's crazy. That's just Thurman Sports, man. Just going da-da-da, and I get to hang around with Lawrence Taylor

and Mike Tyson and Pete Rose. It's not a bad life. Do you consider yourself the greatest wrestler of all time? Yes. Why? Because I am. I'm not on my

Mount Rushmore. You're not? No, because I don't know. I think you better have somebody else put you there. My Mount Rushmore, in terms of importance to the business, is Stone Cold. Hulk, obviously.

Undertaker, and I think Shawn Michaels. Shawn Michaels is the greatest performer of all time in our business. So what makes you the best? I can do a little bit of everything. It doesn't make me the best. I'm just being me. I never say stuff like that. I consider myself to be lucky to be considered one of the best. How about that?

Why is The Rock on your Mount Rushmore? He would be, except he didn't stay long enough. I think part of the Mount Rushmore is longevity. You know, it's hard to be really good and Rock was great. I mean, but he took off and he's on my Mount Rushmore for interview skills and everything else, and I remain very close to him. But he was on TV the other night. Do you ever watch the show? Do you watch Raw now? No, not anymore.

No, he came out. He was out. Oh, I saw that online. They were in Boulder, right? He was out supporting Prime. In Colorado were in Boulder, right? And he was out supporting Prime. In Colorado. In Colorado, right? So he just dropped in for the show.

But there's a new kid in their show. I think he's the United States champion, Austin Theory. And The Rock came out. And I was laughing about it. He looked at Austin Theory. He was one of their up-and-coming stars. They have a lot of TV time. and he looks at Austin Theory. One of their up-and-coming stars. They have a lot of TV time.

So The Rock doesn't know who Austin Theory is. What's Theory going to say? I don't know who you are. I don't think so. He just had that unbelievable amount of charisma. God, what a great guy. Do you think somebody like you, I say like you, Sting, do you think that the NWA and WCW kept y'all from reaching your full potential? No, because, you know, I was NWA so long, you know,

and I didn't end up going there until I was 41, you know, so I could still get around pretty good. I actually had my last match with Shawn when I was 41, you know, so I could still get around pretty good. Actually, my last match was Shawn when I was 59, so. But that was all Shawn Michaels. Shawn, first guy that ever said to me in my entire career, shut up and listen to me. Then he looked at me and said, let's do it, and walked out, and there was 80,000 people in the Citrus Bowl.

Wow. But I did it. I just finally said, you know, he knows what he's doing, and I'm nervous as can be and I'm insecure right now and I'm wondering if I can make it and my whole family's on the front row and no pressure. What do you think the difference between the WCW and WWF was as far as business? Oh, WWF is run like a business okay wcw was just

catches catch can wow everybody everybody had their own thing on and the guy that ran it just he liked creating dissension between let's say it's scott hall and kevin with the nwo the head guys right obviously there are other guys and it was like sting and luger and then hulk and randy i mean he just he just likes to create not create but it was his style of doing business and nothing ever works like that and then hulk had you know total creative control which i don't blame him for he brought he brought a lot to the. But it's just hard to function. I mean, they did, and they did great for 83 weeks. But at the end of 83 weeks, how do you bankrupt Ted Turner?

Damn. Because I love the Four Horsemen, and I always wonder why the Four Horsemen never got to the level of DX or NWO. Well, you know why they love us? Because everybody beat us. But we got our heat back on TV. Then you go to the arena and you get beat up. You get back on TV the next week, beat somebody up.

We don't mind losing in the arenas. The problem is that people back then with WCW, people didn't want to get their heat on TV and didn't want to lose in the arena either. It's got to be, you know, in my opinion, it's got to be a balance. How bad was your... Hold on, what's the difference, though?

Because I would think that more eyeballs would be on television. Oh, there are. Yeah. I don't. I mean, that's what I don't understand either. So they'd have you all lose in arenas. No, the full horse runs out more, yeah. Okay.

Yep. So when you say lose, they just have you all lose matches in the arena? Yeah, yeah. But then win on television. Well, get our heat, not necessarily win, but get it back. Got you, got you. You know. So they never had you all looking like the dominant group,

like how DX was dominant, or NWO was dominant. Yeah, they were dominant, yeah, but DX, I'm talking more about, I have no problem with DX, they were great, but DX, I'm talking more about, I have no problem with DX, they were great, are you kidding me? No, I'm just saying, why do you think Four Horsemen never got to that level? Oh, the time frame. Okay. Yeah, if we'd been, we're 10 years too early. Gotcha.

If we'd come along in the 90s, that same four people, that would have been. I was always wondering, like, when you talk WWF or WWE or NWA or whatever, how do they decide who is going to be that quote-unquote man, right? You know, they give you the opportunity, and you got about five minutes to do something that the guy goes. That people are going to like, really. I mean, you got that, we call it guerrilla, right? There's Vince and Hunter and whoever were the agents are that got some like Michael Hayes guys that have been there for a while and you got they go out the door and you

got five minutes to show them something that's gonna make him go hmm or you know Vince like I've seen him a thousand times he's gonna tell you you're the shit oh you're going home he's gonna shake your hand say nice job I mean or I'll talk to you later my case i'll talk to you later do you remember that conversation with you that first conversation when they pulled you to the side and say you're the guy yeah it wasn't vince it was uh it was uh um yeah it was much when I won the NWA championship for the first time. I guess I'd be 81. But I wasn't the guy I thought I was. But I had wrestled so many guys that were really good

in that one area of the Mid-Atlantic, right, that when I went on the road and started wrestling guys for an hour that didn't know anything about wrestling, when I thought I knew it all, I was lost. I didn't draw. So they took it off me, and then I prepared myself and got myself back and realized that everybody's not gonna be the best wrestler every night.

And then the second time, I was ready to go. That's when I really turned it on. Where did the 54 leg lock come from? Buddy Rogers. Okay. Does that work in real life if you put somebody in there? Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah.

Really? I put a linebacker at Penn State still sitting in the bar, sitting on the floor of a bar. Do you still do it? Do you still do it now? If I can put it on somebody, yeah. You got to let me put it on. I would love to see you put put on Charlemagne one time.

One time. Tell me about the guy in the bar in Penn State. What happened to him? Yeah, well, he's, you know, the phony wrestler thing. He said, figure four and got out of it. So I was with, trying to think who was on the quarterback. The kids that played for the Panthers. Cam Newton?

No, Cam didn't play for Penn State. Cam's Auburn. Auburn, yeah. No, the guy before him. Let me see. Who before Cam? Kerry Collins. Penn State, right?

So we're down on the landing there in Pittsburgh and drinking in the signbacker over the Kerry Collins and the kid told me, he said,

I can get out of that. I said, no you can't. He said, yeah I can. I'd been at the Dapper Dan, right, with Marty Schottenheimer and Bill Cowher, two were all down there. So I put it on him.

I said, you got to let me get it on you. He was a big kid, too. He's still laying there. If you feel up for it, before you leave, I want to see you put it on Charlamagne. He'll let you do it. Yes, one time, yes. And you got to tap out? Yes, I would love to see that one time. Come on. You want to see you put it on Charlamagne. He'll let you do it. Yes, one time, yes. And you got to tap out?

Yes, I would love to see that one time. Come on. You want to have me back on then? What's your favorite iteration of the Four Horsemen? Arn Tully, myself, and Barry Windham. That's the original one, right? Is that the original one? Original was with Ole.

But Ole, his kids were older at that time, and he wanted to work part-time. Ole was great. But the best four were Barry, Arn, myself, and Tully. Do a lot of younger wrestlers come up to you and ask for guidance and mentorship? Do you give it to a lot of the younger wrestlers? I try to, but I realize it doesn't mean anything

because the first thing they're going to is, what do you think? What do you think of all the young wrestlers? I try to, but I realize it doesn't mean anything because the first thing they're going through is what do you think? What do you think of all the young wrestlers? And what, every, it's not just young wrestlers. I'm sure they wanna be famous more important than skill. No, they wanna go look and see what the fans are saying. Yeah. The fans run their life.

Social media runs everything. How do you think a young Ric Flair would handle social media? Well, he'd be in jail. We'd be conducting this interview from Rikers Island. We see too much, right? Yeah. Hello, Rick.

Are you still at Rikers? Yep. Do you mind joining the Breakfast Club? Why don't I talk about your silver coins? That is hilarious, man. It's the truth. Young Rick Flair? I don't think so.

They took out my gold club with the china club, and they threw me out one night. Dang. In New York, they threw you out? Yeah. What happened? Got into a fight. Who wants to fight you, though?

Like, who sees you and be like, I'm going to try. I was just talking to this Pan Am flight attendant. You heard the nasty voice, right? So there was a guy

that sells toys to the WWE and they took his glasses off and stomped on him and he came over crying to me and so I go over to Brian, I slap Brian, I said,

Brian, don't, leave the guy alone, man, we're just having a good time and and then sag's jumped on me and they already had my card and so they threw me out and kept the nasty voice in there can you imagine that damn yeah three thousand dollars wow is there anything that you wouldn't tell people now even even now at this age is there anything you still keep to yourself? Oh, yeah. He told you he didn't want to go to jail. I got a whole closet full of things.

I have a keeper of the closet, you know. That's why I didn't run for governor of North Carolina. Gene Okunawa is going to be the keeper of the closet. How is it watching your daughter following your footsteps? Oh, God, it's amazing. That I'll take very seriously. She's the greatest thing going. Yeah.

You seen her? Yeah, yeah. Yeah, she's in a different world, different planet, different stratosphere than I was. Did you want her to? No. I said, somebody asked her, and she was doing real well in the business world, graduated from college, and I saw her looking, and the guy asked her, and he said, why aren't you doing this?

They had a talent relations at the time. I saw her, I know her like a book, I saw her walk around the room and think to herself, she walked over to me and said, I said, I don't know. Why? She said, I think I'm just going to try it. She is not the greatest of all time. Isn't that like the

ultimate form of homage to you though? Well, it's not really. It's because of her little brother, my son that passed away. Everything I think is still in the back of her mind. She's fulfilling the dream that he lived, which makes it even more special and more personal. That's clearly the most important thing to you.

Yeah, absolutely. Absolutely. What do you think sports entertainment is missing right now? Oh, man. Yeah, carry them every day. What's sports entertainment missing right now? It being sports entertainment period or wrestling? Wrestling.

I don't think it's missing anything, man. I think it's tracking on all fours. I mean, every time you turn around, Tony is opening up another show. They've got three live shows a week now. WWE's making more money than ever. I still believe that wrestling is the greatest form

of sports entertainment there is. People will be like, oh, it's not real. Yeah, but they're sold out saying it's not real. And the stock's at $120 or whatever it is. I mean, they can say whatever they want to say. People watch it. And it's not just the blue-collar fans.

I mean, the doctors, lawyers, everybody loves it. Absolutely. And I do autographs for Ryan, as an example, who runs the biggest sports memorabilia company in probably the world, but I'll say the United States for sure. And we sign these autographs, and the wrestlers that participate, we get as much attention as anybody. I think Ryan can vouch for that.

We're not all going to be like if Barkley came out for something like that or was a good friend of mine, but the guys that do it on a regular basis, I think Ryan will tell you that the wrestlers hold their own with any credible athlete. What's the biggest misconception of wrestling? That it's fake. Not fake, that it's...

I think a misconception... I don't even know if that's a misconception anymore. I have to think about that. I think it's a misconception as to how much hard work goes into it, especially if you're on top now. Because let's say they're working a full schedule. They still wrestle 155 times a year, I think, at the full schedule, right? But if you're in the top tier,

you know what you're doing on the three days off you have? All you're doing is media. Oh. Media for the next round. Media for the next match. I mean, there is no time off, really. That's why it's nice that Vince or whoever's calling the shots now understands that kids need to take a month's break here or there.

I was going to ask you, how does your body heal with so many matches? You're talking 155 matches. I wrestled 425. I wrestled over 400 times for eight years. We don't rest. We just drink and sleep on the plane. Jesus. That's one of the reasons I got into the cannabis business.

I've been eating Xanaxx trying to sleep on his international flight you know somebody asked me about one week I wrestled an hour in Sydney, wrestled an hour in Auckland, wrestled an hour in Christchurch, flew to St. Louis an hour in St. Louis, flew to Atlanta

an hour in Atlanta and flew to Tokyo all in the same week. Wow. That's a lot of booze and at least three Xanax. So you like to smoke the weed? No, I do. I can, but I can't hang with Mike. I will ask you.

I'd love to see you and Mike Tyson smoke. I'm saying edibles are what? Edibles. Edibles can get you off of Xanax. Have you had Mike Tyson's edibles? Huh? Have you had Mike Tyson's edibles? Huh? Have you had Mike's edibles?

Mike Tyson's? Yeah, I've had my own too. I have my own called Woo Chews. Really? Yeah. You should have brought some of that up too. Hell yeah. With these cards. You should have brought some cards and some Woo Chews.

Yeah, I'll bring you guys some. I'll smoke one night. I like the edibles. I can't smoke either. I like the edibles. Well, I just had asthma as a kid, so I didn't smoke. But I'm not against it. I certainly have been around it my whole life.

But the edibles actually can help you get off Xanax or Ambien and stuff like that. If you do it under a doctor's supervision, I wouldn't just stop taking the Xanax. You'd have to withdraw, I assume. But if you do it the right way, I've cleaned myself of not 100%. I'm not going to say I never take one now once in a while but if I have the edibles and I'm not stressed out about something which very rarely gets stressed out anymore but when I was working I did you know it was a lot of

pressure and and if you're on top it's your I think in 90 in 90 i speak for 90 of the people that are on top they still feel responsible for drawing the money they're going to get paid five million dollars the damn arena better be full yeah because other people underneath it even though they have guaranteed salaries will make more does that make sense They want to exceed their guarantees. That's the goal. Damn, that's why the rappers like you, man, the new rappers. You do drugs like them. Xanax?

I used to. That's all. No cocaine and no painkillers, nothing. Ever. Damn. What was the most you ever made for a match? Or for a salary? For a full year? The most I ever made? $800,000. Damn. What was the most you ever made for a match? Or for a salary for a year? For a full year, the most I ever made? $800,000.

No. God damn, that's a robbery for Ric Flair. What? I make twice that with Ryan Fitterman. That's insane. Damn, Ryan. And you ain't got to beat your body up. Jesus Christ. No, I just got to go out and hang out with him while he drinks tequila at night.

Well, let's talk about the reason that you're in town, Comic-Con. Let's talk about these coins in these cars that you have. Let's talk about them again. We can feel the weight of them. Yep. Solid silver, guys. So people can buy these coins. They're $5, right?

It says $5 on the back. Are they worth $5? The price will actually be announced tomorrow. Oh, the price will be announced tomorrow. We can keep these, right? I don't know. Y' will be announced tomorrow. We can keep these, right? I don't know. Y'all talk to them. We can keep these, Ryan?

Or is this for show? These are Kenny. Oh, damn, Kenny. Damn, Kenny. I done took pictures of them and sent them to people. Yeah, me too. I was hesitant. Oh, thank you.

Oh, okay. Word. So people can purchase the cards and you'll sign them at Comic-Con? I'm not sure what to do. I'm doing whatever they want me to. So what are they doing over here? Come here, Ryan. Come to the mic.

One of y'all come to the mic so y'all can explain it. Any one of y'all. So the Nature Boy will be releasing our products October 14th, which is tomorrow, 1030, live on eBay Live at Comic-Con. So we'll post all the prices and all the products that are available, and Rick and I will be opening them live for customers. So there's different chase elements inside there so there'll be redeemables for personalized memorabilia from rick a meet and greet with rick is also available so there's a

lot of cool stuff that we'll be announcing tomorrow morning and these are limit are these limited edition yeah so i made a thousand of this of the silver coins and the bigger holders there those i made a thousand of those okay there's a thousand of those and then of the silver coins and the bigger holders there. Those, I made a thousand of those. Okay. There's a thousand of those. And then of the gold card, there's 500. Wow. So 500 for the gold. Yeah.

Okay. It's pure gold. So his is different than mine, right? I see he's red in his minus. Yeah. So he has to chase. So when we,

when we stop, I'll explain everything to you guys and I'll, we'll split it up evenly amongst you guys. Oh, wow. I love it.

Right. All right. Is there a website? It's amint.com but distribution will be handled by eBay. So get the Comic Con early and hopefully they can get some of this stuff and Rick will be there to meet some people.

That's so cool. Congratulations, man. You deserve it. Thank you, sir. The fact that you got your body beat up and they only paid you $800,000, I'd love to see you winning that. That was just one year. That was just one year. $500,000 for the most. Before that. Wow. I did want to ask you, that was just one year yeah 500 for the most before that before that wow i didn't want to ask you what do you think like about celebrities getting into wrestling like when you see the logan pauls and the bad actually i like the guys that are actually good athletes

and i've got no problem with that i'm not crazy about some of the people they bring in but i mean when they actually couldn't get in the ring and and Bad Bunny was a really good friend of mine. He did pretty good. He did really good. He killed it. He did really good. But that Paul kid, believe it or not, I know that Shawn trained him, which I wasn't aware of,

but that Paul kid is damn good. He's an athlete. Yeah, and he ain't afraid of anything. You know, a big part of wrestling is, when they start telling you to jump off that turnbuckle and go through the table, I mean, that table doesn't always break the way you want it to. There ain't nothing guaranteed about those tables.

You know, they're not gimmicked or anything. They haven't been taking their screws out. You got to hit them right dead center in the middle or they won't break the right way. Wow. Hold on, so those tables weren't staged? No, absolutely not. That's a big misconception. Do you know how many people y'all got hurt that went home and tried that on one of

them tables? Oh yeah, I'm sure. Especially with the steel chairs. Yeah, steel chair that they don't know more headshots because of all the concussion issues. You know, I mean guys like Mick Foley and I mean the stuff Mick did is still, if you look at the stuff going off the top of the cage. And then that time, I was just talking to Taker about it the other day when they were on top of the cage. And Taker said, Mick, I can feel the wires breaking on top, right? Mick said, I'm ready. And he fell through, landed on the back of his neck. Teeth went through right to his nose.

Oh my God. I mean, Mick has beat his brains out, man. More, more, I mean, thumbtack matches. I only had a couple of those with him, but it doesn't hurt while you're out there, but man, when you go back there and opponent thumbtacks out here and

the barbed wire stuff, the barbed wire is really rough. That barbed wire baseball bat, there's nothing good about that. Jesus. All the time I thought all that stuff was props. I thought it was props too. I'm like, there's no way that's real thumbtacks. They got to be plastic.

No. No way that's real barbed wire. But when you hit a guy with a barbed wire bat, you're going to hit him one time. And once again, it doesn't hurt when you're out there because the adrenaline's flowing, right? But when you go back and you've got barbed wire in your head. Y'all had to be on more than adrenaline.

You had to be on something. There's no way y'all went out there. No, I mean, they didn't stick it in. The barbed wire didn't stick in you, but it whacked you. Yeah, when your adrenaline's running, you'd be surprised. How many medics were backstage? How many what? Medics, ambulances.

Oh, they have two full-time doctors just two had to be some cocaine involved man okay had to be not for me never really some people you don't teach the kids for cocaine anymore back in the 80s yeah it's very prevalent but i don't i never hear of any cocaine use in our business. I'm not saying they don't. Yeah, yeah. But it's certainly not done on the premises. The wellness policy that WWE has is stricter than, actually it's probably stricter than the NFL.

Wow. And I'm sure Tony has the same thing at AEW. Mm-hmm. They can't afford to have someone, you know. Overdose and die. Yeah, stuff like that. Especially with kids watching absolutely

well Ric Flair we appreciate you joining us thank you so much make sure you head out to Comic Con get what you gotta get get these mint cards I can't wait till we get a Ric Flair movie man I know guess what it's coming down based off your book to be a man no no I can't tell you anymore

I just got the word the The writer's strike is over. Wow. Well, congrats. You're going to get a Rick... Wow. This guy right here. Really? I can't say no more.

He can't say no more. Wow. Can't say any more. All right. All right. It's the Breakfast Club. It's Rick Flynn. I want to come back. Anytime. Anytime. Wake't say anymore. All right. All right. It's the Breakfast Club. It's Rick Flynn. I want to come back.

Anytime. Anytime. Wake that ass up. In the morning. The Breakfast Club.