The Joe Rogan Experience - #1974 - Ric Flair

Episode Date: April 22, 2023

Ric Flair is a professional wrestler and entrepreneur whose many business ventures include a chicken wing restaurant chain, comic book, and signature cannabis line, among others. https://ricflairdripglobal.com/

The Joe Rogan Experience. Train by day, Joe Rogan podcast by night, all day. Juliana's tough, man. She's very tough. Tony Hinchcliffe and Rick motherfucking Flair. This is an honor, dude. This is like, to meet a guy like, you're like a human living legend walking through the streets. Even the way you look, man, you look like Ric Flair.

Thank you. Hope that's good. Oh, it's great, man. It's awesome. I love the suit. Thank you. But the diamonds and everything. Look at Tony.

He's flabbergasted. He's the man. He's literally the man. Like that's like you have like some licensing on that or something, right? I did, but the WWE borrowed him without asking me. They borrowed your licensing for calling yourself the man? Yeah. Really?

They gave it to Becky Lynch. Sons of bitches. This guy is a gigantic fan of yours. I mean, beyond. So if he seems a little awestruck right now, that's what's going on. Yeah, he's very polite. Thank you. I was raised on pro wrestling,

and I didn't know what a Rolex or a Jet or anything was until you came out when I was eight years old. And I'm like, what the hell is this guy beating the good guys? Literally. Just preposterous. That's who this guy was well it's you took the art of the promo like the interview to a completely different level you really did you made it so fun yeah thank you i was having fun making them how did you develop that sort of style like was that something you always had Is that something you cultivated for pro wrestling?

No, I loved pro wrestling as a kid. I watched it all the time. My dad would take me to a match on my birthday or something like that. Right? I was going to play football at the University of Minnesota academically ineligible

after a semester. Stayed in the fraternity house for two years, told my parents I was still in school. And then Ken Patera came to town, and I got a chance to break in with Vern. I just kind of grew up on Joan Ameth, going back to where I got that. When I saw Joan Ameth in Miami in the men's coat

with the chick and the lounge chair, I said, that's me. And then that he had slept with 300 women in Alabama, I said, that's my game. I've got to figure out how to get there. There's a video, I'm sure you've seen it, of these football players. You know what the team was? The Colts, Sergio Brown. Yes. And they're all... Jamie, see if you can find it

because it's one of my absolute favorite clips on the internet. And these guys are reciting your lines word for word. Yeah, Sergio Brown, God bless him. Let's hear this, let's hear this. Sergio. Diamond ring, wham! Woo!

He's stealing! Woo! Wheelie stealing! Woo! Limousine ride! Woo! diamond ring work kiss stealing wheeling dealing limousine ride jet flying and I'm having a hard time holding these out of his house

he's got them on for you he's got gators on right now come on man I couldn't show up on your show without the gators you know I've done this at a show before where you could just say Ric Flair and you point the microphone out and the whole crowd goes, woo! Thank God. It's amazing.

I mean, that's an amazing thing. You're like literally the only human being that's connected to a sound. Yeah. You go, Ric Flair! And they go, woo! How did that, was that something that just came out one day one promo i'm telling you we used to drive you know three three thousand thirty five hundred miles a week sometimes four i mean at night you're just listening to music and drinking beer and throwing

cans at the science you know in the old days and driving 100 miles an hour. And I heard Jerry Lewis go, goodness gracious, great balls of fire, woo. Oh, wow. But the emphasis wasn't on the woo as much as the thing. And I went, shit, the next day on TV, I said, da-da-da-da-da, woo. And that's how it all started. Wow. 1974. Jerry Lee Lewis, the killer.

Goodness gracious, good balls of fire. Oh, my God. That's amazing. That was another wild motherfucker. Jesus Christ, that guy was wild. Oh, shit. He's got a couple of missing wives. Yeah.

Some of them couldn't swim. Yeah. That guy's a wild motherfucker. When he got off the plane with that 13-year-old in England, that one. Yeah, that was a wrap. You're a little too country for us, fella. He'd have been bigger than Elvis, really. Yeah, that sunk him.

Which is crazy, because Elvis married a 14-year-old if he just waited 12 months. Yeah. Come on, man. Was Priscilla 14? Yes, I believe she was 14. Oh, my God. Isn't that the case, Jamie? I think when he met I believe she was 14. Oh, my God. Wasn't that the case, Jamie?

I think when he met her, she was 14. Yeah. Which is wild. On the bass, right? Yeah. Jerry Lee Lewis, one time, Little Richard had to follow him, and he lit the fucking piano on fire. In Chicago.

And he said, follow that motherfucker. Yeah, yeah. Wait, Jerry Lee was before? Yes. Little Richard had to follow him. And so they were in Chicago. And so he lit the panel on fire after all this stuff and then walked by. Okay.

They met when she was 14, but they tied the knot when she was 21. Okay. Oh, that's not bad. No. It's just a little creepy that he knew her when she was a little kid. But what if she lived, you know, a couple blocks away and you say hi, then one day she's 18, you're like, hey, you want to go see a movie? That's okay.

19, 20, get to know each other. Yeah. 21, you marry her. That's a legit age to get married. And FYI, honey, I'm the king. Yeah. Come on, baby. His jet was for sale. I seriously thought about looking honey, I'm the king. Yeah. Come on, my bear. His jet was for sale.

I seriously thought about looking at it. The 707. Oh, wow. 707. Yeah, it's probably a piece of shit. But he would just like

have it in your yard. Yeah. Do podcasts from it. From Elvis's jet. Yeah. Come on. Dude, that might be the move. Get it and put it

in a hangar somewhere. I'm thinking. It sold for a fairly reasonable amount of money. Yeah, I bet it and put it in a hangar somewhere. I'm thinking. It sold for a fairly reasonable amount of money. Yeah, I bet it did. It's a piece of shit. 260K. That's it? Oh.

That's all they went for? Wow. That fucked up. Damn, look at that. It's got duct tape on it. Shit. Come on. That thing looks awesome.

All the patina on it. That movie was good. Did you see that movie on The King? Oh, yeah. I loved it That guy Austin What is that gentleman's name Austin

That played I don't know Elvis Jamie Do you know his name He did a fabulous job Fantastic They said the kid was in

Like He talks like that now He's fucked Oh wow Come Elvis Yeah Austin Butler He's fucking really good man Yeah he is

Really good That was a good movie I'm sure it was a little You know All those movies About a real life when the guy's dead. Like, did he really say that? Yeah. You know.

Well, Tom Hanks was fantastic. Yeah, all-time heel. Oh, my God. He was fantastic. Yeah. Yeah, he was great. So believable. The guy is so diversified in his roles he can play.

Yeah. That guy, the colonel, what a fucking creep. Yeah, no shit. Never let him go overseas. Look at a creep yeah no never let him go overseas look at the money left by never letting him go overseas are you scared you want to control elvis and then the gambling what a great story though yeah yeah man the thing about a guy like elvis and you can speak to this too because when you get that famous like when you're that young and you get that famous like your whole the're that young and you get that famous,

like the whole world is kind of crazy. Like how does a guy like that, there was no Elvis's before Elvis. No. Right, I mean I think he was like before Michael Jackson, he was like the first person like that, was just like this mega superstar. The only guy I've ever seen like that I've witnessed

in music that's close to him with bon jovi with the women you know i mean i actually went to a bon jovi concert with one of my wives i've had four so uh um and i'm sitting i'm watching this and the whole there's 18 000 people in the arena 17 000 of our women i never realized that a guy had that kind of following. Oh, Bon Jovi? He was beautiful. Yeah, I know him. And what's the bass guitar player's name?

Richie Samboro? Samboro, yeah, yeah. And their chicks were throwing their top on him. Yeah, I was a little jealous. I did a thing once, an evening, no, what was it? An intimate evening with Bon Jovi. And it was for VH1, and I had to warm up the crowd. So I had to do stand up and warm up the crowd

and then bring up Bon Jovi. And we had to bring girls to the center. And when those guys were on stage and those guys were singing, these girls were so close. They were so close to Bon Jovi, because it was a very small venue, like a couple hundred people. They were right there.

The look on their faces, they're being hypnotized. They can't believe he's real. He's right there. It's like that thing we did with Elvis in the round. Yes. In the black outfit. Yes. Jesus.

Yes, god damn. That was great in the movie, too. Go watch that now. The chicks are going crazy. See if you can find that, the Elvis in the round. Yeah, he was just too much. When you developed this personality that was, like, so partying and balling, it was so appealing to guys. Just like, I want to be that guy.

Yeah. Like, look at you having so much fucking fun. And it made it. Yeah, look at this. Look at this fun. And it made it, you know. Yeah, look at this. Look at this. They're right around him. I know.

Give me some volume on this. And this was his big comeback show. Yeah, exactly. And boy, did that fucking take off. Yeah. Look at that hair.

It's like a Darth Vader helmet or something. Bro, he was such a talent. Wait a minute. Wait a minute. I forgot the lyrics. This is live. This is awesome. Oh, man. What a motherfucker he was. So cool. What a cool motherfucker he was. I'm still jealous.

Roots of Fight just sent me a new Elvis hoodie. It's like a pink Elvis hoodie with Japanese letters on it. Oh, man. Roots of Fight has sent me a new Elvis hoodie. It's like a pink Elvis hoodie with Japanese letters on it. Oh, I love it. Oh, man. Roots of Fight has some dope Elvis shit. Yeah. The Elvis karate days were my favorite.

We'd get fucked up on pills and just start doing karate. Yeah, yeah. Unreal. Your character, man, was like, was there anybody else like you before you? Who was your influences? Well, Joe Namath, of course. But I mean, was there anybody in pro wrestling? No.

No, Ali. I loved Ali. And of course, I got to know him pretty well, too. Did you really? Yeah. I traveled to North Korea with him. And he refereed a couple matches I was in. Wow.

Yeah. I never had a drink with him, but I sat in a bar with him in New Orleans. And brother, this is long after he's retired, and the women were still hanging. I mean, I thought, this son of a gun, man. Did he just like Elvis? I can imagine, yeah. Oh, yeah. Well, he was a gentle old dude.

No, we were right there, yeah. Look at that. Look at that look at that yeah wow he fought antonio enoki that guy to the left remember that yeah i did too did you really oh that's right that was north korea enoki was a fascinating character what an interesting thing he did too when he fought ali like he let him leg yeah he let him leg kick him did you ever see that fight no oh my god it was like kind of a real fight because Ali was boxing and he's moving around and Inoki got on his butt and butt scooted

and started kicking his legs where Ali couldn't punch him you never saw that oh wow oh dude it fucked Ali's legs up really bad, dude. Because, like, Ali had never been leg kicked before, and he's facing Inoki. And look, Inoki's doing this thing where he's lying on his back. Smart. And I think, you know, I don't know what they worked out, whether or not it was going to be a legit fight,

or whether Ali had any idea Inoki was going to kick his legs I don't know what the agreement was but it's very interesting to watch this because Ali's trying to you know entertain and he's also trying to punch him but Inoki's like kicking his legs so this is the third round so he mostly just butt scooted and tried to get Ali to come to him But he fucked his legs up Where Ali was having a real problem with his legs after that For quite a long time Yeah I bet That looks like that would suck

Look at he's going for leg locks and shit This is so dangerous You're like a legit pro heavyweight boxer And you're letting this guy yank on your ACL I don't know what the rules were It's weird Can you see if you can find any of the video of him kicking his legs Because it was pretty nasty You got to yank on your ACL. I don't know what the rules were. It's weird. Can you see if you can find any of the video of him kicking his legs?

Because it was pretty nasty. When you had a match with him, where did you have your match with? North Korea. In North Korea? In Pyongyang, yeah. In North Korea, wow. Bad news. What was that like?

I think probably the most scared I've ever been of anything in my life. Really? Forget the plane crash and everything else. That deal was so intimidating. They took our passports, right? And then they separated us. They put me in one hotel, Ali in another, and the other talent that came along in another. And I knew where to go.

I was in trouble. The other guy says, he looked at my Rolex watch and goes, it would take me one year, I think we're making like six American dollars a week, what these people were making, the equivalent, I think he told me that. It's the end of the game, he's like, it would take 100 years to buy one of these. I wanted to say, buddy, you can have this right now, but just get me on a plane home.

I mean, it was that bad. How did they talk you into doing that? Like, what was the premise earlier? Oh, God, don't even get me going. A promoter in WCW. They wanted Foreman first. Foreman said no, then they wanted Hogan. Hogan said, I can't make that one, brother.

And so they came to me and they said, you know, nobody will ever see it. You'll be more famous than Lawrence Taylor. So I that one, brother. And so they came to me and they said, you know, nobody will ever see it. You'll be more famous than Lawrence Taylor. So I automatically went, yes. And then we never even talked. I'd never worked with a Nokia before, so he just trusted me. Well, that's cool that you guys had that kind of respect that you could do that. Yeah.

Because you didn't speak Japanese, obviously. No. Does he speak any English? Very little. So did you know what North Korea was like? I had no idea. I was good friends with Jesse Helms back then. Senator Helms of North Carolina.

So I called, he said, don't go. Wow. Everybody I called that I knew in politics said, don't go. It's a volatile situation, but it still is. Yeah. And they hate the Americans. They hate the Americans. Why do they? They hate still is and they hate the Americans they hate the Americans they hate the Americans and they hate the Japanese why'd they want you over there?

like why did they send you a match there? it was called like a goodwill games Inoki promoted it trying to promote goodwill between I don't know whether trying to get North and South Korea together or trying to ease North and South Korea together or trying

to ease the tension between Japan and Korea. I don't know, North Korea, I don't know. But they clearly hate the Japanese and the Americans. So weird that they had a Japanese and American over there. I wish you could pull up that card show. They will, you know they have to hold the cards up. It's like synchronized swimming, right? And they show a bomb.

They show a rocket ship. 200,000 people was the crowd. 200,000 people in the stadium. Whoa. And they're mandatory attendance. It wasn't like they bought tickets. Ah. And it shows a rocket flying right over Japan,

a land in America. Oh, whoa. Look at this. It's unbelievable. Watch this. They have that. Oh, they're all synchronized. Yeah, it's the most unbelievable thing I've ever seen in my life.

Wow. this rocket taking off and flying over Japan and blowing up America. Whoa. So you remember the name Mike Chinoy from CNN, right? Mike Chinoy, years ago, the troubleshooter. Okay. So he comes to me. He said they wanted me to say that, make a speech before they give my passport that I thought North Korea could defeat USA hands down. And so I said, I can't do that.

And Chinoy said, well, you know, I don't know if we'll let you out here without making that statement. I go, okay, here we go again. What am I going to think about it? So anyway, I made it sound like they could be intimidating. I made it sound like we wouldn't back down to them, but there's a possibility that they could win or something like that. Wow. So you had to come up with a crafted statement. Yeah, yeah.

Did they have to prove it? Yeah, before they gave my passport back. Holy shit. Listen, when we, Ali and I got in that private jet, when we landed in Nagoya, instead of Tokyo, I got off the jet and kissed the ground. I said, never again. I was so glad to be back.

How long were you over there for? We were supposed to be there for four days. We were there for seven. They kept us three more days oh jesus yeah wow yeah ollie and i ollie and i are at the marigold hall which is their version of the capitol and uh the guy is talking that on this interpreter and he goes talking about how they could destroy America and whatever and Ali Tasmian, keep in mind he hasn't said a word on the trip yet. He goes, no wonder we hate these son of a bitches.

I go, please don't start talking now. Just tell me later when we're alone. Don't bring that up. Yeah, no shit. Let's eat this shit and get out of here. What kind of food do they serve you? Oh, their food's good. I love Korean food. I still do Korean barbecue and stuff like that.

So they took care of you guys, but it was scary. Yeah, it was just intimidating. You have no control over your destination. Yeah. I don't even ride in somebody else's car when I have to go somewhere. I like to have my own limo and my own car. I don't know. Can't trust anybody else anymore.

Was that the only time you ever had to go somewhere sketchy like that? That's the sketchiest, yeah. Jesus. Yeah. Yeah, nobody goes over there now. No. Well, Rodman goes. Rodman goes. Rodman goes.

He still does. He hasn't gone in a while, but Dennis called me, and he goes, they gave him $250. He said, I'll get you $25 if you'll go with me. I said, I'm not going over there for $250. I've been there, brother. Dennis is crazy, but Dennis will do anything. Yeah, he's friends with that dude. He's so odd.

Yeah, yeah. What do they play, basketball together or something? Video games. I'm sure he pays him to let him beat him or something like that. So weird. So weird that he became friends with that guy. Yeah. Dennis is a great guy. He's a wild fella.

Going over there all the time. Listen to this. How about that though? Dating Madonna. Madonna broke up with him for cheating. He's cheating on Madonna. He's an animal? Yeah, he's cheating on, who's the other one?

Carmen Electra. I go, Dennis, how do you cheat on Madonna? He said, I couldn't help myself. Did you ever see, you know,

because Damon Wayans had a bit about when Magic Johnson had HIV and he went back to playing basketball and he goes everybody was scared of him except Dennis Rodman he goes Dennis Rodman's like motherfucker

I'll spit in your mouth and accelerate your symptoms he goes I fucked Madonna I'll spit in your mouth and accelerate your symptoms

oh it's so funny oh yeah Damon the dentist of the trip man, it's so funny. Oh, Damon. Dennis is a trip man. Oh, he's so wild. Yeah. He was on that celebrity rehab show.

It was hilarious because everybody else was like, oh, they're all getting off pills. Dennis is just jogging. He was on the treadmill and shit, reading the newspaper. He's like, I'm fine. I just wanted to do a TV show. So I'm partying a little bit too much. Whatever. Yeah. They actually, you know, that thing, the last dance, right?

The show with Jordan last year or two years ago. They're actually doing a takeover of the two days they took off to go get Dennis out of Vegas. They're making a sequel. Oh, my goodness. I don't remember what it was. I once watched an animated thing I was in a hotel on the road doing some gig that covered that it was just this half-hour shows like in the middle of The night and it was the funniest thing I've ever seen

That's an animated like cartoon said for women in the room for two days and the Chicago Bulls The Chicago Bulls were like in the playoffs. There was like an important thing and they're like, okay You can go to Vegas. But they send this, they send like the water boy with him. They're like, make sure he doesn't get in trouble. This poor water boy is just in the weeds. The whole story is so off the charts. It's insane.

They're making a Netflix thing. Amazing. Either Netflix or one of the networks. That's amazing. Yeah. What a character that dude is. God. Characters in entertainment and sports and guys like Rodman and really guys like you,

they're so important to young kids because they make things so much more exciting. And Tony can speak to this better than anybody because he was just such a massive pro wrestling fan when he was a kid. And it's real and you can feel that it's real when hogan which is all i had up until you know i would glance at wcw again i was eight when you made it to the when you switched to the wwf yeah so like everything before that even though i was young as hell i'm like that guy seems like it's fake he's just telling me to say my prayers and eat vitamins like hogan even though i liked him up until that point when you got there i didn't it was you that

switched me to heels and bad guys and villains everything changed but it was take your vitamins and say your prayers and that's what the teachers at my catholic school in youngstown ohio were telling me and i didn't like them mine was drink the booze and chase the women. And I'm like, this guy seems real. At eight years old, I'm like, this is... Stay all night and stay a little longer. Yeah. And the fact that you actually lived that life.

I did. A lot of those, every other wrestler was playing it a direction. The Undertaker wasn't really burying bodies rowdy rowdy piper wasn't scottish playing bagpipes all these legends somehow you combined your action the all of the worlds you and the only difference is sometimes you would wrestle and still be that same guy yeah no i i lived the life i have to, it wasn't always cost effective, but I lived my gimmick. But yeah, but it's such a fun life, man. What year did you start? What year did you make your first pro wrestling matches? 73. 73. I started training in fall of 72,

and I had my first match in January of 73. Those are the old days, man. The killer Kowalski days. Yeah. Vern Gagne. Wow. It was crazy. Crusher, bruiser. Yeah.

But you started wrestling after the plane crash, right? No, the plane crash was in 75. Oh, wow. Tell us about the plane crash. We were going from Charlotte to Wilmington, North Carolina, for an outdoor show, $10,000 at the Legion Stadium. That's where Michael's from. That's the first time I met Michael Jordan.

Not at that show, but I met him at the matches in Wilmington. And what happened ultimately is he took five of us on the plane and we didn't know at the time he was carrying no fuel because we were 1,400 pounds over gross. Right. So we get there and hit a little bit of a headwind. We're between 7,000 and 8,000. It's not a pressurized plane, so that's not 310. And he did what's called past the point of no return. He should have landed in Raleigh and refilled.

But he's looking and saying it's 100 miles, right? So unbeknownst to us, the guy in front of me, Johnny Valentine, who got paralyzed, kept looking at the gas gauge and looking back at me and going, ah, ah. I was going, Johnny, you have that dry sense of humor.

Well, we're flying along. All of a sudden, the right engine goes boop, boop, boop, boop, boop, maybe like six times over like you see in the movies, and bingo, pinned, right? I went, shit. He reaches down, and he pulls up to the reserve, natural reaction. There is no reserve gas. Left engine went, boom, boom.

Left engine went, boom. And instead of, we flew into a tree orchard, right? Normally it'll cartwheel a small aircraft. We were going so fast we tore it down and landed in a railroad embankment stuck in the ground at 230 miles an hour. So we were probably going well over 300. And we're just literally 200 yards from the runway. Wow.

So he tried. And you... He died, and he never regained consciousness. And two chicks came, both engaged to him, double knockout at the door, the hospital door. Oh boy. I told the guy, he goes, Joe, you and I could talk all day.

So they're putting us in the ambulance, right? It's like the old military style. Not like the ones today that are like a hospital room, right? You're putting in a rack, right? And he goes, I think we might lose this one. So I go, I told the guy, I said, I think he's talking about me. I said, man, go to my shaving kit. I said, a letter to a chick named Sheila.

I said, tell Sheila I love her, but not to come see me. Last I've seen a Sheila. Oh, boy. The guy showed up 10 years later at the match. He said, you remember me? I'm the guy who got the letter for you. I said, thanks. So how bad did you get injured in the accident?

Broke my back three places, T10, 11, and 12. So it fractured the actual bones of the spine? Compression fracture, yeah. I used to be a six-foot two. So they had to fuse your back? Nope, no surgery at all. Really? Yeah, they just didn't think I'd ever wrestle again.

And that was what we were going to do, right? They said you're i'd ever wrestle again and i i'm you know that goes that was what we're gonna do right they said you're never gonna wrestle again yeah that was in 75 would you say when was it october of 75 and i was back in the ring in march of 76. yeah i went from 255 to 180 back to 218. Wow. But I never got myself to land flat on my back again, ever. Everybody knows I landed on my hip on my side. Yeah. Because of your back injury. Yeah, just couldn't get myself to land flat.

So the promoter I was wrestling said, if you don't take a back drop, that's where you flip over a guy's shoulder and go up in the air like six, seven feet. I'm going to make you wrestle an hour every night until you do. That's where you flip over a guy's shoulder and go up in the air like six or seven feet, boom. I'm gonna make you wrestle an hour every night until you do. So after two weeks of wrestling, and some of the crowds back then are 250, 300 people, you know what I mean, five bucks ringside,

Fisherville, North Carolina, or Fisherville, Virginia, middle of nowhere, right? One hour every night. Finally, I said, damn it, I'm just going to take the backdrop. Throw me in, hit the turmoil, took it, boom. That was over. But I just couldn't get myself to land flat on my back. When you did, what happened? Were you all right?

I was fine, yeah. So it was just psychological? All psychological, yeah. Jesus Christ. And that's one of the things, you with you. That's so rare There's only probably two handfuls of wrestlers that Famously in the WWF would have these long hour long when it was the main event of a pay-per-view back Then they would have an hour was normal. I did 330

Three years in a row I did more than 330 hours. Yeah. So like most pro wrestlers. Sometimes nine hours a week. Yeah. Twice on Saturday, twice on Sunday. Unbelievable. So most pro wrestlers that are famous, if you're in the main event on a Monday night or whatever, it's maybe 10, maybe 20.

If it's a crazy match, maybe 30 minutes. But him versus Bretad hart versus sean michaels versus hulk hogan versus andre versus everybody it was long long matches steamboat randy savage why was that because in the old days if you're the nwa champion it was either you win or um you go broadway and none of the promoters, because I travel around the world, none of the promoters wanted their top guy to get beat. The problem is that half the guys couldn't wrestle for an hour, so I'm wrestling myself.

Yeah. The last half hour, basically wrestling myself. Oh, wow. Putting on a show. Yeah, the worst part was down here with the Von Erics. I'm sure you remember that story. Actually, the movie coming out. I had to wrestle all those kids.

They had a lot of issues with chemicals and it was just a nightmare. Greatest kids in the world, but to wrestle an hour with someone that's impaired is really rough. Was it rough because they couldn't coordinate right? Coordinate, yeah. I don't mean physically rough, but just difficult. They were just out there. To tell a story, yeah. Yeah. Oh, but just difficult. They were just out there. To tell a story, yeah.

Oh, right, right. So when you would have a match like that that's an hour match, were you just kind of flowing, figuring out? Did you have like a preconceived ending to it, or did you just kind of? No, I always just called it the ring because I had to hear the crowd. I don't do that now, but for even even like before I retired I gotta hear the crowd cause you know you can put all this together in rehearsal right

and walk out and all of a sudden the crowd is going they can turn on you just like this right which takes a lifetime to learn you gotta have plan A plan B I mean it's kind of like a football team getting ready to go out and three receivers drop the plan A, plan B. I mean it's kinda like a football team, getting ready to go out and three receivers

drop the first long pass, you know what I mean? You gotta start all over again. So when you would get out there, you and the guy would be working, you would call things? Yeah. And so you just sort of orchestrated the whole thing from there. Wow, that's for a whole hour.

You have to be in insane shape. I say kids, it's like riding a Greyhound bus, leave it driving to me. But it's, God, you gotta be in insane shape to do that for nine hours a week. The amount of physical beating that pro wrestlers put on their body is like really nothing in entertainment or sports.

Because the amount of shows you guys do. Because it's every day. There's no season. Yeah. Yeah, and there's no time off. That's what people don't appreciate. There's no time off. So WrestleMania just got over, right?

The kids have seven days off. They're right back at it. So they get seven days after WrestleMania. That's nothing. Yeah. Especially for the kind of impacts those guys take. Yeah. And the stuff they do now is insanity.

We didn't have all the ladder matches, and I've only been in a couple of those. I've been through the tables and all that stuff a hundred times, but those ladder matches were edgeless, spearing Jeff Hardy. Oh, yeah, totally. But there was also even crazier stuff that happened in your era that doesn't happen anymore, like steel chairs to the head.

Oh, yeah, we'd kill ourselves. I took two blades every hour. And all the blood. I've seen this guy bleed more than any other human ever. Get her about 20, and then get her about the 45-minute mark. What are you using, like, just a small razor? Johnson blade, break it in half, tape it up.

I learned that in 72 before I even started working. The guy said, if you want to make $50 extra, do you mind cutting yourself? I said, shit, no. Because right then I was making $50. But if I cut myself, I got 50 more. I got 100. And how many times a week would you cut yourself? Every day.

Oh, my God. That's so crazy. Until Vince said, no, no. Right, right. Vince said, no more cuts. There you go. Oh, this is a great promo. You were a fucking jack back then, too.

Yeah, I was pretty healthy. How much did you you since you're doing that much touring and that much wrestling did you how much time did you get to like work out or did you work out every day no matter what no matter what if i got if i got in at four in the morning i worked out of five well i never missed it 500 free squats push-upsups, mostly an all-around body workout once I was working full-time. So an hour and a half and then 30 minutes of cardio, either 500 free squats or the Stairmaster. Was that common with other guys like you?

No. It was just your work ethic? That was mine because I just had it in my mind that I had to be at work. I tell you, fly to town, get there, go get a tan. You haven't got time to work out, you know. I want to work out in the morning. I've got a couple hours in the afternoon to relax, to go tan. So I just trained myself to do it early in the morning.

And so that was the only way you would have been able to wrestle nine hours a week. Yeah. I mean, if you weren't in peak physical condition, that is a grueling schedule. I don't think anybody really would understand how insane that is. That's not seven days a week, one hour a day. That's insane. Nine hours a week is bananas. One year I wrestled 426 times.

Holy shit. Wow. Not all hours, but that's how many days I wrestled. That's insane. How many matches I wrestled in a year. The amount of impact on your body, the falls, the slams, the fucking clotheslines. Like, holy shit. I mean, the epitome of work hard, party hard.

Because right after those matches, what is the routine? Dance all night, dance all under. Take us through, like, when you go street in austin texas hey little girl in the high school sweater joey should have met me in my day i bet i should have so we would have both gotten real trouble like so like when you go back through the curtain after an hour-long match what's what goes on then take us through a night of a no these this normal routine you're working out then you'd have the match then what well you remember my career i used to go like

because in the old days we could do that we can't do it now of course because i don't it's unacceptable i used to plug the marriott i'd sayott. I'd say, you don't have to go to Disney World to ride Space Mountain. 18 to 28, no boyfriends, no husbands. The Marriott. And I'd give that address of the Marriott. And they'd come visit you at the hotel? There'd be 300 in the lobby, man.

That was not a guy's soap opera then, man. Oh, my God. Oh, yeah, yeah. They knew we were coming, and they were ready. Oh, my God. And they were tricked out. I used to talk to two of them on Morse code. What are you doing tonight, baby?

300 of them. How did you pick who to hang out with? Oh, I wasn't. It was more than just me. I can't think of it right now. Right, of them. How did you pick who to hang out with? Oh, it was more than just me. I can't think it right now. Right, of course. I mean, it was all the guys came. I just won't throw their names out there. Right.

But you, you were the ultimate wingman. I just couldn't go to bed. I just couldn't. I'd go to bed. Right. But also, with your personality and personality and like with your persona, they must have just flocked to you, all the crazy ones. Some of them did, certainly. The crazy ones.

Probably. Yeah. I mean, if you're going to get gussied up to go meet Ric Flair, that girl's on a mission. I hope so. What was it like like touring back then? What was the whole scene like? Well, it's not like the guy soap opera. There's no girls at the hotel, even if they know what we're saying.

And in social media, the guys don't go out anymore. It just changed. I would have never survived this. Oh, this current climate? This current climate, no. guys don't go out anymore. It just changed. I would have never survived this. Right. Oh, this current climate? This current climate, no. I couldn't. I have a hard time doing it right now at 74. Lay low.

You've got a gigantic diamond wedding ring on. Is this a wedding ring or is this just a ring? It's a wedding ring. It's a wedding ring. Yep. That must be the last one. Yeah. This is it. That's a serious ring or is this just a ring? It's a wedding ring. That must be the last one. This is it. You're done. That's a serious ring. Yep. That's Wendy Kidder.

She's the one. Took a long time. She's the one. Here, Manny, you are the one. And by the way, Joe, she runs rickflaireshop.com. I had to give that a shout out. Now I'll really get it when I get home. rickflaireshop.com. I had to give that a shout out.

All right. Now I'll really get it when I get home. rickflaireshop.com. When you were like a young single guy, I mean, how did you maintain that pace? If you're wrestling nine hours a week and you're partying and you're meeting girls at the Marriott, like how do you have the time for this? I don't know, but I found it. But I mean, where are you getting the energy from?

I just always had a lot of self-energy. I mean, I'm still very energetic. Because actually, regardless of the surgeries and stuff like that, I feel great. I have no knee replacements, no hip replacements. That's amazing. No back surgery. I almost died five years ago from my intestine ruptured. That was from probably indulging too much.

But anyway, I've been lucky. It's really the gift of God. What operations have you had to have? I've had two rotator cuff. I was gonna have a third, but I just decided not to do it, but it doesn't hurt. I can't bend it, but it doesn't hurt. So as long as it doesn't hurt, I'm fine.

Then I cracked C5 in my neck, and then I had three compression fractures. But my intestine completely ruptured in 2017, and I was septic, My chest had completely ruptured in 2017 and I was septic. Septic, which was the bad part, total kidney failure. What do you call that? Respiratory heart failure and pneumonia. So it took him 48 hours to get me ready for surgery.

So I was in a coma for 14 days, ICU for 31. And then I had to spend a month in a rehab center. I couldn't walk. I couldn't, that was just 2017. So you were what, like 69 back then? Jesus, that's sketchy. Yeah, very lucky. And that was just from indulgence?

No, what happened was, they tried to scare me and tell me that's from drinking. I said, what it was, it was 2015. I'd had a pain in my stomach and I put it off, put it off, put it off, finally I said, well, one day I got it with the doctor and it was looked at. So within 15 minutes they're operating on me,

I had a ruptured appendix. So, you know, at five o'clock, five o'clock they go, either going upstairs or you're going home. So five o'clock they said, no, we you're going home so I 5 o'clock I said I'm going to keep you overnight this was pretty bad I said I'm not a chance I got up took the thing out of my arm just sent no big deal it's pulled IV got up took five feet I got a hernia laid me back down so two days later to operate on a hernia and they obstruct obstructed my bowel. Bowel obstruction is the bad one.

From the operation? Yes. So then I'm at three operations in 11 days. But, boy, the abdominal pain was brutal. I finally got home. And then you find out, because I've asked a million doctors, you know, before I started drinking again. And I said, the drinking causes?

They said, no, what causes it? It's one in a million doctors before I started drinking again. I said, the drinking causes? They said, no, what causes it? It's one in a million times. And you're that one in a million. If you've had a previous bowel obstruction issue, it can happen again. And it did. I was just sitting in a bar in Atlanta. Man, the pain, I mean, I just dropped over. I don't remember anything.

Wow. Wow. The wife took me in the hospital. I woke up 31 days later. That's crazy. One thing about pro wrestling is the amount of guys that are just in constant chronic pain that go to painkillers.

Yeah. Yeah. Thank God it's eased up, but you know, guys wrestle through injuries. In the old days, it's much better now. The company takes tremendous care of people now, but they've got to take care of themselves too. You know what I mean?

And that self-medication, you know the deal, one pill makes you feel good, I'll take two. Well, that isn't what the doctor said. It's like steroids. If you can take one shot, okay, good. Well, I'll take two. That isn't what, you know what I mean? Right. The word moderation

does not exist. It's starting to exist now in our business, but it never did for a long time. Well, there's such wild people, right? Wild people indulgent, and on top of that, they're smashing into each other all the time. Yeah, not so much anymore. The kids today are really refined. Yeah. They're much better

yet. They're much better. They're forced to be with social media and everything. But it's a whole tamer world now. Yeah. Do you miss the wilder world, though? I do. I love the Mohicans in that regard. I still get to go back once in a while.

And I went this year and inducted Muda in the hall of fame. And my daughter is, is arguably with Roman reigns, the biggest star in the company, Charlotte. So the queen, no doubt. Monster. Unbelievable.

I can't, it's thank you for being here and verifying it. Yeah. She's an elite. I mean, she is a freak athlete. Five 11, one 50 an elite of her own, man. I mean, she is a freak athlete. 5'11", 150. I'll show you a picture.

I mean, and can do that. You saw that Rhea gave her that German suplex where she rotated and landed on her face. I mean. Unbelievable. Freak athlete. That's the kind of shit that I'm talking about. Level 10 gymnast. Wow. At 5'10".

I mean, she was unreal. All-American cheerleader. Just the sheer amount of impact that the human body takes. Look at her there. Boom. Yeah. Can you show her doing the corkstroom moonsault? This is the part to look at.

It's got to be pretty cool, too, that your daughter falls in your footsteps. Well, also she does, of course, a figure four leg lock, and she pops it up into that cool bridge. She calls it the figure eight. Yeah. So she's literally, you know, he invented the figure four leg lock, which every fucking human anywhere around my age was doing to each other at eight years old in backyards and on trampolines all around

the world. Watch this, Joe. Oh my God! It's a grease! Look at that. That is such a crazy thing to do to actually land on something. Isn't that unbelievable to be that tall? It's just so risky. Oh my God. Jesus? It's just so risky.

Oh, my God. Jesus Christ, that is so crazy. To do that every night, my God, your ACLs, your discs, your shoulders, your wrists. Yeah, she's healthy, though. She's in good shape. Wow, she's got those durable Ric Flair jeans. Yeah, but she trains. I mean, she carries the food, she packs her own food and all that.

I mean, I could never do that. For me, I got away with it because I was working so much, but I could eat anything and drink anything and I wouldn't gain a pound, but she just really takes care of herself that kind of work ethic that you had when you were younger did that did that rub off on the other guys you wrestled with yeah some did yeah it's kind of like you know still people still

talk about it because i just i just that came from vern i just learned that if i was in better shape but you know the the saying that what what did Vince Lombardi say? Fatigue makes cowards of us all. When you're dragging your tongue, man, I don't care how tough you are. You're somebody's bitch if you want them to be. You know what I mean? And these guys coming out to the first half all roaring with 30 minutes left to go. And you probably already done seven matches that week yeah it's like again 92 royal

rumble you you come out number one 30 entrance you know how the royal number two oh you were number two yeah and i passed but it's the same thing i passed dbs anyway and i'll see you tomorrow after the match so he comes out number two 30 entrance it's basically kind was it your actual debut in the wwf or was it like they built you up a little bit and then you're in the royal i think i had wrestled hulk the night before boston guard right but basically we're meeting this guy who comes out number two with fucking white hair and you know i mean it's just like who the hell what like what is going on and he goes the whole match ends up

what do you mean so there's just this guy look at the outfit too imagine being eight and you're like what the fuck is this guy? How does he have white hair? How does it match his robe?

What's going on here? We had never seen anything like it. What year is this, 92? 92. And this is almost 20 years after the doctor tells you you're never going to wrestle again. Exactly. Which is wild. So he enters.

He ends up, 30 people come out every minute. He ends up throwing all of them. Everybody else ends up going over the top rope. The winner of this wins the WWF championship. He was even cooler and better back then. You would win the belt straight up. Because it was like a vacant belt that year or whatever. So this is all for the championship.

And all of a sudden he's beating up on Hogan. You win. And then he cuts after the match, which they definitely don't do anything like that anymore, this diabolical promo that's wrestling folklore. Congratulations, Ric Flair, on becoming the undisputed champion of the World Wrestling Federation. folklore. This is the greatest moment in my life. When you walk around this world and you tell everybody you're number one, the only way you get to stay number one is to be number one. And this is the only title in the wrestling world that makes you number one when you are the king of the WWF.

You rule the world. Think about it like that, Mr. Perfect. Guys, we're not breaking the wagon. Woo! Woo! We did it! Let's give a big one! Woo!

Woo! I was never so impressed with anything I've ever seen in all my life. He went out there for over 60 minutes, never took a back step, took it to Hogan, took it to The Undertaker, took it to whoever got in that ring. That's why he is, and you can call him now, the real world heavyweight champion. We're not the kind of guys to

say, we told you so, but we told you so. This brings Tony right back to his childhood. It's just a show. He barely blinks the whole time. He just did the craziest physical shit possible. It's the greatest moment of my life. I want to jump. I want to party.

But I got to tell you like this, for the Hulk Hogan's and the Macho Man's and the Piper's and the Sid's, now it's Ric Flair and y'all pay homage to the man. That's the shit. That's the shit. So when you started, like in the early, early years, like what was the tour like? Like what was the traveling like?

30,000 miles a week, 3,500. When I was in the Carolinas, we'd do like, I lived in Charlotte, I was there for 42 years. You would drive to Greenville, 100 miles, 120 each way. Next day you'd drive to either Columbia and back, or Columbia to Raleigh, right? Do TV in Raleigh, wrestle in Raleigh. What was the organization that you were working for

back then? Jim Krakow Promotions. And then you drove to, you brought TV there, then you drove 250 miles to Norfolk, Virginia. Then you drove 150 miles to Richmond, Virginia. Then you drove 250 miles to Roanoke, Virginia, then you drove 250 miles back to Charlotte, then you drove 250 miles down to Savannah, Georgia,

or Charleston, or go up to Greensboro, which is 110 miles each way, right? And then started all over the next week. Did you have a place you lived? Or did you just basically live at hotels? Oh, no, I had a home. How often were you there? Well, I was there at night, but I left at the same thing. I'd get up in the morning at home and train at like 7 o'clock,

you know, take my daughter to school or whatever and then come back and train and then have lunch and take off. Wow. And now these shows... That's when I was working there when I became the world champion. I was like I could be like... The longest week I ever had, I was in Sydney. Sydney to Auckland, New Zealand.

Auckland, New Zealand to St. Louis. St. Louis to Atlanta. Atlanta back to Tokyo. In seven days. Louis, St. Louis to Atlanta, Atlanta back to Tokyo in seven days. Wow. Yeah. And those were all our matches, that was crazy. The early days when you first got started, so you get into it and are you doing like

100 seat places, 200 seat places? Well, we were in big arenas then, but I was so far down the car. In the earliest days? Yeah, we're at Winnipeg, we'd a denver would say we'd fly to denver actually chicago would sell out the amphitheater and chicago would sell out but i was so far down the car they're making i was making like 100 150 dollars a night wow we drove to winnipeg that was 500 each way thousands of miles right there and then get in the car

at noon and drive to Springfield, Illinois at 380. And how many of these kind of small organizations existed back then that would just ship you all around the country? Well, there was Florida territory, Georgia territory, the Carolinas, which took

in North and South Carolina, Virginia, West Virginia there was Dallas territory there was the San Antonio territory there was Paul Bosch in Houston there was Tokyo, Ohio that was Georgia Championship

Wrestling Portland and then the Calgary in Calgary, and New Zealand, Australia, and Japan. And it was all very separated, and they all respected each other. And I spent a lot of time in Puerto Rico, too. And Vince McMahon was the one that just went in

and started literally just buying them up slowly and strategically even though his father us usa cable tv he made a deal with his dad where he got the company and his dad's like all right just let the other territories be kind of all right and he's like sure dad totally then he made it the biggest craziest, multi-billion dollar form of entertainment. A total different thing that people had, you know, it was like down south. Like they were filling big venues in the early 70s because that was that. It was like a monster truck event.

Like they knew about it. Like you'd see a billboard. Oh, wow, we can go to the arena and see a wrestling match. But it was Vince that bought everything and took all the best characters and made them go against each other, where normally they wouldn't even get to do that. You know Endeavor just bought the WWE? Yes.

Yeah, okay. Yeah, Endeavor, who owns the UFC. Yeah. Yeah, they just bought the UFC. How do you think that'll work out? Well, they're smart. They know how to promote things. You know, hopefully it'll just get even bigger.

Yeah. I would think so, too. I just can't see Vince taking any orders. Yeah, I know. That'll be a strange one for me if someone tries to tell Vince what to do. Is that what's going to happen? I don't know.

We don't know. I doubt it. They all seem so smart. I think that keeping them separate but equal, I think you give Dana full control there and Vince full control there. Oh, I don't think they overlap. I think you give Dana full control there and Vince full control there. Oh, I don't think they overlap. I think it's just owned by the same company.

But the way they've treated the UFC, they're very smart. And WME just said to Dana White, you know what you're doing? Run this. You know how to run this. I'm sure they'll do the same thing. Oh, great.

I think so. How could you not? Who the fuck knows more about wrestling than that guy? Nobody. That just did. Can you give us some? When he was getting involved in scandals and there was like girls that had paid off, I just wanted to say, duh.

Yeah. Like, duh. You got an 80-year-old savage who's built like a fucking gladiator. Gee, you think he fucks? What do you think? What do you think? You think Vince McMahon is doing that just for fucking hee-hees and ha-has? Right.

No, of course he's got some floozies on the side. He's my hero. Really? He's an animal. I judge people by how they treat me, and he has treated me like I've never had anyone treat me with more respect ever in this business. Wow, that's awesome. He's a great guy.

I don't care what he does. Before him, there was really no one of that caliber. No. There's no one that put together an organization as big as the WWF. No, no. And he's got balls bigger than fucking Dallas, Texas. I mean, he's not easily intimidated.

Because, you know, when you're talking about your early days, you're going to these places, and, you know, the local people know, but it's kind of obscure nationwide. For someone to take wrestling, that was, you know, there was always small shows on television, but to turn to something like the WWF, to have that vision, to be able to pull something like that off is pretty wild. The most watched cable television program for, I think, like 28 years or something like that.

The most watched thing on cable. We could have had the 30th anniversary. Yeah. 30 years. Wow. That's a record. Every Monday. Boom, boom, boom, boom, boom.

On a Monday. People tried to imitate that success with other organizations, but you really need a Vince McMahon. Yeah. You need a kingpin. A long-term storyteller that sees things from weeks ahead. Like what you do tonight.

He would, he's still, from what I understand, I read recently, he changed the script on a Monday night, right before the whole taping, changed all the things around. And everybody's panicking like,

oh wow, he's changing all this stuff. But it's like for a reason. If something's happening, it's like how you could have planned your matches, you could do an act in stand-up comedy right down the barrel, but being present, you know, listening to the crowd and feeling the stuff, and that's what he does.

Yeah, he just spends all day. I mean, he's so invested time-wise and mentally. I mean, to me, he's sharp as a tack. He just had a chance, took a little break from it, you know, but it gave him a chance to look at the product and then come back at it and fix what he thought was right or wrong. One of my things. And to me, he's entitled to do that.

Sure. He owns it. I mean, he built it. Yeah. He can do whatever the fuck he wants. You know, one of the things that I really admired was one, there was this one moment where he ran into the ring, and he kind of like dove into the ring in a funny way

and hit his thigh on the side of the ring and blew out his quad. To both. Both. Same time. Yeah, and he was supposed to be there being a leader and telling- We thought he had a heart attack, a stroke. We're sitting there watching, he tore them both at the same time. That is so, see you're gonna find that.

It's so crazy, because the guy must be in fucking agony, and he's still present, so he comes running out. And he's supposed to be fixing this situation. You goddamn idiots. You don't know how to run a show. He's mad at both referees because they tied. So he's supposed to be the leader of this all right now. And then boom.

Now he can't stand up. I mean, it doesn't even make sense how he blew them out like that. So he's sitting there and he's still in character. Well, he can't even fucking walk. And everybody else goes along with it. You realize something's wrong so how do they realize like why he was sitting there they don't they're just improvising and he doesn't have enough time to tell him that he blew his quads but what really is happening there is he's been in gorilla position for the pay-per-view for

three hours so he's been sitting in the back with headphones on hitting a button communicating to referees communicating to camera guys communicating to everything making the entire production everything oh yeah and then they this thing wasn't actually supposed to go like that they literally at the end of that royal rumble the two final people literally tied one i mean if they did it a thousand times they wouldn't be able to land how they landed they They literally land at the same time. Never have, right? It's just one in a billion. So the refs don't know what to do at all because they're watching the replay and they're literally, they tied.

And they tie, no matter what angle you watch it from, it's a blatant. Again, they could have done it a thousand times and they wouldn't have timed it like this. So Vince improvising has to get up out of this chair that he's been sitting in for hours and he's like okay i'll go yell at them and tell them to restart it or whatever but he's been sitting controlling everything so all the blood here's how it happened is all the blood is in his fucking brain and now he's oh i'm gonna fix this when he's coming down that ramp throwing his jacket he's there's no there's nothing he hasn't moved his legs in three hours so that's how it happened but you know he'll sit there and he'll he'll wear the announcers out

because he's talking to them in their headset as they're calling he was stupid son of a bitch we don't say pro wrestling anymore. Sports entertainment. Non-stop messing with the commentators. Oh, it's unbelievable. It's entertainment, man. If you're sitting there watching, he's having a guy bring him a Morton steak. He's eating a steak with Mortons.

Drinking a protein drink and hollering at the announcers. It's the greatest thing you've ever seen. Just controlling everything. Did you ever have a match where you got injured like that? It's either like, when you walk back into the curtain. I've had a few of these in my day.

He said to me one time, 80s heels don't draw. God damn it. I don't want to hear anymore of that kiss-stealing, wheeling, dealing shit. Really? He told you, I don't want to hear anymore of that kiss-stealing, wheeling, dealing

shit? Yeah, yeah. And he goes another time, another great story. I've got so many good ones about him. He goes, who taught you to take a slam off the top rope? I went, Harley Race. He goes, Harley Race taught you that? Okay.

Nobody's going to tell Harley, right? Harley would have been the king of the UFC, by the way, if he was alive. Yeah? With no training. Really? Oh, you have no idea. Yeah? With no training. Really? Oh, you have no idea. No idea. What did he look like? Show me a picture.

Yeah, Harley Race. Unbelievable. Jamie will show me a picture. Old school. Old school. No, listen. He's in a car wreck at 19. Kills his wife.

Almost lost his left arm, right? So he's been in pro wrestling since he was 13. Okay, look at him. So they put a metal rod this thick from here to here to save his arm. Joe,

my name's Harley Race. You got a problem with that? And he would hit you with his metal rod. I mean, I've seen him. I mean, and he had butts. I mean, bites you. I've seen him pull a guy's hair out of his head. He would have been a king of the UFC.

He bit guys? I mean, there's no rule of oil, but hell yeah. Look at him. That looks like a man from another era. Yeah, he is. He was. Can you imagine being in the business at age 13? He was in the business at 13?

Yeah. When did pro wrestling really start touring in the United States? We've had some really tough guys over the years. Oh, I'd imagine. I don't mean UFC as tough as they are. There's still rules. Well, look at Brock Lesnar. I'm talking about, yeah, real tough.

Brock Lesnar had very little MMA experience. He became a heavyweight champion and beat Randy Couture. Yeah, Brock is our version of Harley Race today. But the difference is Brock wouldn't bite your nose off. I don't think he would hesitate him. And Brock wouldn't bite your nose off I don't think you would has it in him and Brock wouldn't pull your eye out pull your eye out yeah this guy hardly many times simple boom ah he pulled guys eyes out yeah I've seen it twice what they got blinded you mean well they lost her I

was hanging by hanging by a string I don't know what happened to it. This was back in the 70s. Jesus Christ. Literally pulled their fucking eye out? You know how cool it is, right? Oh, yeah. Yeah. That's a scary guy. How cool would it be to have barked in his nose off in Toledo, Ohio?

Yeah. Like off. We've had some really tough guys in the business. So before we get to the nose, let's go back to the eyes. So you've seen more than one guy get his eyeball pulled out of his head? I've never seen it fall on the ground. But you saw it hanging out of his head? Oh, yeah.

I've seen it three times. Holy fuck. Do you ever see those guys again? No, they weren't wrestlers. They were fans in the bar starting to fight. Oh. These weren't wrestlers. These were guys that thought they were tough.

Harley used to go, I guess, I have to do the smoking thing, because we'd walk into a bar like in Fort Worth. This is his favorite. I said, Harley, look at all the women in here, man. It's packed. These girls in cowboy boots and jeans and shit. He said, I'm going to play pool.

I go, Harley, please. Just sit down and have a drink. Calm down. He'd go over there. So, you know, popular pool can be in those western bars, right? There's guys that put 10 quarters. Quarter next guy, right? They have to play, right? They're all standing there, 20 people around.

Take the cue off the wall, chalk it up, knock all the quarters off. Oh, shit. I'm next. Anybody got a problem? Just picking it. He loved being the world champion. Jesus Christ. He was a different experience man you would have loved him joy he could tell you some stuff oh there he is right there with

there's a there's a haku brother yeah we call him the human veegematic. Yeah. That's considered by many to be the scariest guy. Oh, my God. Yeah. Yeah, he's on a short leash now. He's not allowed. His wife doesn't let him out of the house. Look at him. His wife doesn't let him out of the house?

Well, I mean, he's had so many lawsuits. He's bad, man. So I'll tell you, we're in Charleston, South Carolina, and a bar called, I can't remember, it's in the late 80s, early 90s. And so Hakug is drinking Jack, right? And he goes, so he goes and asks this girl to dance. She's dancing, right?

He just cuts in on the guy. So the guy comes back and cuts in. Haku goes, why would he do that? Does he know about, does he know the chief? I go back there, tap on the guy, and start dancing with the girl again, right? So it's closing time. They call the jukebox, and you can Google it. So this manager goes, last call on the post, last call.

So I ordered a bunch for the last call. And Haku was sitting there drinking. Here he is, you've seen him, right? And this guy, just normal sized guy, maybe five, nine, maybe 160 pounds. He goes up to Haku, he goes, goes, like, and poking him on the chest. Hey, you, I told you, out. We called the goozle. He put the guy to sleep.

He just grabbed him by the neck. He hit him with the thing, the artery here. He got just dropped to the ground. Here come the cops oh you don't want to get him drunk yeah god damn i don't know if that guy can smell what the rock is cooking though yeah help yourself no there was some real from really tough really really tough guys no but haku is a good and he's the kindestest weirdest guy in the world but unless you say something wrong to well it's the Jack Daniels and also back then not only are these guys coming in hot after doing a

sold-out arena in extreme high and then why would why do guys want to give a guy like what do you look at him once again of shit right them some shit? Right. Why would anybody? They're some dumb motherfuckers. Exactly. And they're drunk. And if they say anything, even if what you do isn't even real, back then. Yeah, those guys were volatile. Back then, before they admitted that it was entertainment, like back then, they were, I mean, a whole different era.

Well, here's the deal. We'd walk in and all the girls would leave the guys and come hang out with 10 of us. Entertainment? Like back then, they were, I mean, a whole different era. We'd walk in and all the girls would leave the guys and come hang out with 10 of us. Of course, they all got pissed off and they'd start running their mouths and then they'd get their ass kicked. But back then, it's not like, now you can't do anything. I mean, the cops aren't even came on stuff like that. They just threw the guy out, you know? Right.

If there were cell phone videos back then, there would be thousands and thousands and thousands of cell phone videos of them beating people's asses all around the world. How often did you guys get into bar fights? On a seven-day week, probably twice a week. Not me. No, but I've seen bar fights. Right, right. At least.

It depends on what town we're in. But if we're an overnight town, a big... It's funny. It's usually the smaller towns that the local guy is supposed to be the tough guy. Yeah, of course. I mean, the small town, and then we come, and all the girls are in the small town. Of course. The local tough guy.

And then, of course, he gets his ass whipped. Yeah. Murdered. Yeah. What a fucking gigantic mistake. From guys that are in seven-day-a-week, one-hour match shape, working out for two hours every day.

No, but with Harley, it was that left hand. What did you say about wrestling? You. I'm talking to you. He said with the cigarette in his hand. The guy's looking at his cigarette, right? I said it was fake. Wham. I mean, broken

jaw, broken nose. I mean, and that was before after followed by two headbutts. Unbelievable. Different time now. Twice a week you would see shit like that. In a seven day week? Oh yeah, for sure.

There's something about that. Especially in Texas. The cowboys down here think they're half tough, you know, or that in the old days did. The real cowboys, yeah. I'm sure. Well they probably were tough compared to regular people. Sure.

But I meant, you know, rodeo riders and all that. I'm taking nothing away from them. Right. They just weren't hardly raised tough. There's something. Or Jack Mulligan tough or Hawk Kurov. Right. Some of the guys were just dynamite.

Yeah, I'm sure. There's something so romantic about that. Well, just traveling around, getting hammered every night, beating the fuck out of people in bars, going back to the arenas. I mean, that would make an amazing fucking movie. Yeah, the insanity of that life. Again, it's like you live something that's just not going to ever be available to young guys again. You can't live that way anymore.

No, and it's probably better. It's absolutely better. Yeah, probably. It's probably much easier, much more controlled environment. Yeah, but to us, to hear these stories, it's like I'm so glad you lived that life. Yeah. Well, we're the last of a dying breed. It's much healthier too. I mean, just, man, we were, it was just a very tough, it's still very insensitive business. It's hard. How did guys get by with pain?

Did someone prescribe them pills? Did they find them on their own? They found them on their own. Got them illegally. There's always been a way back. There's always been a way to get, I guess, Viking or whatever it is. I've never taken it myself. You never had to take any of that stuff?

The only thing I've ever taken is Xanax. Really? Yeah, and now the edibles have gotten me off of Xanax. Wow. I'm in the marijuana business now, you know. Oh, are you really? Oh, yeah, I brought all this stuff to show you. Oh, no shit.

Yeah, that's how I finally got here. I was wondering what's in the box. Look at all my stuff here, man. Ah! Oh, shit. Hey, woo-choos. Oh, my God. Woo-choos.

Oh, my goodness. Look at this. I'm nervous just looking at them. Yeah. Oh, you got a drink? Yeah. How many milligrams is the drink? That's just the energy drink.

Oh, okay. Energy and focus. I need energy and focus. Yeah, the newest one, they're doing a erectile dysfunction thing with cannabis. They're going to call it Rick Thick. Hey, man, this is fucking tasty. What is this? Isn't that good?

A mushroom blend, it says? Yeah. What's in here? I don't know. Be careful. Read all the ingredients. Sparkling mushroom elixir. All right. How cool. And what's that? Aling mushroom elixir. All right.

How cool. And what's that? Pre-roll. Oh, joints. Nice. We need to spark one up with Ric Flair. Let's do it. High flying.

Yeah. Limousine riding. I'm only having one hit with you, man. Okay. That stuff is strong. That's the infused. It smells strong. Jesus Christ.

It smells like that stuff that Ron White had that put everybody into a coma. Yeah. It does me. Mike can smoke it like crazy. Yeah, Mike goes hard. Ron White had this joint. Tony was there. Ron White had this.

Well, they gave it to me in L.A. It's all infused it's got that the THC crystals I'm like you can keep that shit I'm like I'm not fucking with that

and then everybody remember Brian Simpson was just sitting there we're like Brian you okay he's like what the fuck was in that reefer

yeah I gotta give Chad Bronstein Aristotle and Adam Wilk a shout out man to the guys that put me in the business when did you get me in the business.

When did you get involved in the cannabis business? Six months ago, Ric Flair Drip. Nice. Yeah. How does it taste to you? Good? It's good stuff, man. Cross this off my bucket list.

Yeah. First time I got high with Mike Tyson, I'm like, okay, I'm good. I got high with Mike Tyson. I got high with snoop dogg wiz khalifa uh be real yeah all the stoners all the legit guys oh geez we were we missed was last night we were at 420 in missouri whiz is in fucking amazing shit yeah ever see that guy's workout routine whiz khalifa got really into muay thai like to the point where like i think he was thinking about taking a fight He's really good man He's in fucking incredible shape

He's fully ripped You ever seen Wiz Khalifa with his shirt off? Shredded Yeah Dude he looks like a UFC fighter Like no bullshit He's built like Jalen Turner Oh wow

Yeah he works out at Unbroken That big place in LA. Look at him now. You know what? Snoop is in really good shape too. Snoop's in very good shape. Snoop can spar too. Snoop knows how to throw his hands.

Like look at Wiz Khalifa. See if you can get one of him working out with his shirt off because he's fucking shredded. And he's been dedicated to this for like years now it's jay glazer's gym jay glazer has this big gym called unbreakable in la wow it's like kind of like a private gym but like a lot of mma fighters train there and you know like some serious pro athletes and celebrities Athletes and celebrities. Look at Wiz Khalifa. That's hard to do.

Yeah. There we go. It's nice to see these guys getting in serious shit. Oh, yeah. I mean, come on, man. Look at that. Dude's a rapper, and he's training like a Muay Thai fighter. This is good, man. What flavor is this?

Do you know what flavor this is? I don't know which one. It just says mushroom blend, but it tastes fucking delicious. Take a swig of that. That's really good, man. Yeah. Strawberry banana. Ah, that's what it is.

Here. I want you to try this. This is mine. This is spicy pineapple Kill Cliff. Whoa. Energy drink? You had one of these? Yeah.

Dude, that is really good. It's very good, right? You've had one of these, right? Mm-hmm. Not bad. So you got involved in the cannabis business, but were you taking edibles before you got involved in it? Yeah, but not like I do now. but were you taking edibles before you got involved in it? Yeah, but not like I do now.

And were you taking it specifically because of injuries and inflammation? No, no, just to get off the Xanax. No, injuries, like I would, it's a miracle, but I don't hurt anywhere. Joey Diaz was telling us yesterday how hard getting off the Xanax was for him. He didn't even know. He just got on them. It's really hard. He tried to just jump off, and they said, withdrawing yeah you can feel it if you miss one then you've been

taking as long as long as i have i can really feel it how long have you taken it for since 89 holy yeah yeah i had a real self-confidence issue. You know about that, I'm sure. You had a self-confidence issue? Huge, yeah. How was that possible? Just different promoters having different feelings about my position with the company and life. And that's when you started taking Xanax? Yeah, I fell apart.

Wow. So it was just a career trajectory thing. No, I just, once I got to the WWE, I quit taking it. But that time I had with WCW, this guy wanted me

to cut my hair, call myself Spartacus. Oh my God. Oh my God. Holy shit. Jesus Christ. Whose idea was that? Jim Hurd., my God. Oh, my God. Holy shit. Jesus Christ. Whose idea was that? Jim Hurd. Oh, my God. To think that he almost killed the...

Yeah. Well, I did cut my hair. That was the haircut I had in North Korea. I fell for it. I just... But I was cracked by then. I went from being the world champion to, you know, this guy that ran Pizza Huts, St. Louis.

Ted just hired his friends to run the wrestling. And his friends just hired people. It's like until they hired Bobby Cox, the Braves never won. He had his next door neighbor running the Braves. Remember? And then all of a sudden the Braves became good. Bobby Cox is the manager. He just let his friends run a lot of his businesses. So this guy who doesn't know anything about wrestling comes to you. Does he pull you inside a meeting and tells you this?

He says, yeah, I want to change your number or cut your hair and call you Spartacus and put a earring in your ear. So what do you say to this? I was in shock. I went home and had anxiety. I didn't know what anxiety was. And I had one. Isn't that crazy that just some fucking idiot can ruin your life like that?

Wow. And with that, you drop... I'm sure the suggestion was to drop everything that you had at that point, except for your physical moves in the ring but like your your promo no no nothing about that just the name he just wanted just uh rick flair that's that's that's nwa or wcwl what year was this well um 90 90 91 jesus christ because i left i finally left and you're two years away from that moment yeah wow i just had some of the best matches of my career in 89

with steamboat remember shy town rumble yeah oh yeah this freaks you out, and then how does the Xanax start? You go to a doctor? Like, how do you get on that? Believe it or not, my wife gave it to me. And I've thought about, over the years, I've thought about, what the hell was she taking Xanax for? A lot of people take that shit. Yeah, and I don't know.

I didn't. I thought she was sitting in a stairway case in a big house we had, and I was going, God, I was just lost. And she goes, what are you doing? And I said, I'm just feeling anxious, if that's even a word, right? And if that's the word for it. She said, take this. I took it.

It felt normal. I said, what is that? She said, it's an annex. And I never even thought to ask her why she was taking it. Yeah, there's so many people on that shit. They were explaining it to me last night. They were saying that if you got all these problems

and stress and all these things are fucking with you, take it and it just melts away. Yeah, it doesn't melt away, but it just gives you time to sleep. I just take it to sleep with, but I don't anymore. I got off it completely, then I got back on it, and now that I've been with Chad, Mike, and all that, they're accessible to me all the time. Plus, my own line, we dropped my own line in Florida

in all the Ric Flair drip. So how long did it take you to get off the Xanax, and how'd you do it? Plus, we dropped my own line in Florida on the Ric Flair drip. So how long did it take you to get off the Xanax and how'd you do it? I started taking a quarter of it from the two milligram bar, right? Took a quarter of it and replaced it with a quarter of a Wuchu. Not a Wuchu, but a Mike Bite. The edible that Mike has. Then boom. It took me over a month.

I finally got it registered and gone. I woke up with no side effects. The edibles will make you sleep good. For sure. How much were you taking a day? It only took you a month to get off of it. Joey took him six months before he felt normal. It just took you a month to get off of it? Because I know a lot of, like Joey took him six months before he felt normal. No, I just took, well, it just took me a month, maybe five weeks. I take one two milligram bar at night to sleep. I did.

And you did that for a little while? I did it from 89. Oh, so that was what, so it was just to sleep? Just to sleep, yeah, I don't take it during the day. Oh. Yeah, but it would last me enough, you know, and then when I had bad anxiety, I might have taken something during the day a couple times,

but, I mean, I've gotten a ring in at the rest of the match where I couldn't feel my hands from my anxiety. Really? Yeah, it was that bad. That's so crazy, because if anybody saw you and saw your persona, they would never imagine in a million years that confidence is ever a problem. Well, you know, they have shows like this where you can be honest about yourself.

I'm not perfect. I took Xanax, but I lost my self-confidence twice really bad in life. Well, it's great that you're confident enough and honest enough to tell people about that because I'm sure there's a lot of people out there that would imagine that a guy like you never feels any self-doubt. Oh, no, I felt a lot of self-doubt. And then, I mean, I've had a lot of help coming back. Vince has always been there for me. Like, he'd say, what the hell is wrong with you? You know what I mean?

Hunter was there. Hunter would say, the only one that doesn't know Rick Flair is you. I know, but when you lose it it's hard to get it back once you've lost your self confidence yeah I can imagine how

when what year did you retire I officially retired in 2008 I should have stayed retired but I was paying a lot of money

to three different women so I had to go back to work Joe I'm a trendsetter Joe I'm a trendsetter, Joe. I'm a trendsetter. $2 million in alimony and $2 million in attorney fees. Oh, Jesus. Wow.

And a million and a half in penalty and interest. Really? Oh, yeah, easy. Oh, my God. Jesus Christ. World champion. Oh, my God. People can learn from that, too.

Finally, we got a rebate. At 74 this year, I'm getting a rebate. You're still paying alimony? No, no, I'm getting a rebate from the government. Oh, really? For overpaying. Finally. How long did you have to pay Alamo before?

Well, I started paying it in, let me see. I paid, my first wife, I had to pay $2,500 a month. That's been from 81 to 83. And I bought her out because she met somebody. My second wife, 17,000 for two years, 16,000 for two years, 12,000 for two years, and 10,000 for two years. Is that it? $980,000. Then I had two other

wives just in and out of the door, but that's another $500,000. I am the world champion. That many women. I know, God. It's kind of amazing you only have three ex-wives.

It's kind of amazing you only have that many ex-wives. Yeah. I didn't really think about it. Thank God. Who's got the record? Who's got the record for being married the most? Some guy that's still on Xanax. Yeah. Still, though, I mean,

it goes with the story. I mean, no one would expect anything less. You know, that's what everybody would want to hear from a guy like you. A string of failed marriages and lots of fun. Yeah. Good Lord.

When you look back on it now, thinking about when you first started out, it has to seem kind of unbelievable. It absolutely does. Now that here I am making more money with cannabis than I ever made in wrestling. Really? Yeah.

That's wild. That's great to hear, though. I never made the big paydays. I was gone by the time all that came around. Oh, really? Yeah. You were a huge bridge in all that right before the Attitude Era.

Yep. What's the attitude that is when um stone cold came out the rock and sean i mean everybody nwo was on wcw uh you know it was just like uh you could say anything you could do anything people were you know 10 year olds all around the country were telling their teachers to suck it because of what we were watching on, you know, Monday nights. I'm good here. And Stone Cold's giving people the double bird and then stunning them and throwing cans of beer around and fucking pouring beer.

Is it commonly known as the Attitude Era? Oh, yeah, very much so. Yeah, it's when Mike, remember Mike refereed the match between Shawn Michaels and Steve Austin. That was great. There was a Monday night where the episode started and it's Vince. It just fades from the intro music straight to Vince in front of a black curtain or something. And he basically goes, look, we've been telling you for a long time that you know wrestling is me yeehaw and he goes this is the end of that now we're giving we're going to give it to you real we're going to give it to you raw right that was the gist of it and we're like

what's he talking about and things just got a lot more funny a lot more crazy this This was all Vince's idea. Yeah, of course. And Stephanie pulled it off. Stephanie was great. Unbelievable. Hunter, DX, all that. Yep. Shawn Michaels was the best performer of all time. Such great content. Every Monday, every Saturday morning, every Tuesday or Friday or whatever the other show was,

and every pay-per-view was just ridiculous. I mean, football stadiums, soccer stadiums, baseball stadiums. Sports have copied the WWE. All the All-Star Games, the Super Bowls, all that stuff. He was doing it years ago. Isn't it funny how it just takes one guy sometimes? Just one trendsetter, one dude who has a vision, who turns this thing.

Who would have ever thought wrestling would have got that big? Yeah. Right. Unbelievable. And now, what do you think about, like, now that they have,

like, celebrities do guest masks, like Floyd Mayweather and Logan Paul? Logan Paul actually does some wild shit. Yeah, he does.

He's really good. He does some wild shit. He really does. Jumping off the top ropes and slamming into each other in the middle, like, that's some serious athleticism.

Yeah, I tell them, both those kids are half tough. Very tough. Yeah. Yeah. Take nothing away from them. No, I mean, people want to take something away from them

because they're YouTube people. I always tell people, just forget that Jake Paul is a YouTube guy and watching box. The kid can fight 100%. And that Tommy Fury fight really showed that. I mean it goes to a split decision against a legit

undefeated boxer yeah he doesn't I'll tell you what the one thing he doesn't want to do is fight Mike no he wants to fight Mike

I think why I don't know I don't give a fuck if he's 55 that's still Mike Tyson Mike's in good shape too oh my god

Mike trains every day he trains with Rafael Cordero who's a legend in MMA. He runs King's Mixed Martial Arts. And Rafael is a fucking world-renowned trainer. When you see him holding the mitts for Tyson, and Tyson smashing the mitts, you're like, Jesus. That guy can still fuck you up. He don't want to fight Mike. Fuck you up. You don't want to fight in this world with hormone replacement and vitamins and dealing and he does all this like

Electrical muscular stimulation recovery stuff like when they were training Mike for that Roy Jones fight Like they were using state-of-the-art science. Yeah, like I don't give a fuck if you think he's 55 years old that guy will You know if Jake Paul's on the other side of the ring and he sees Mike Tyson just fucking bobbing and weaving, he's going to have a recognition. He's going to look over and go, oh my God, that's really Mike Tyson. Look at this. Oh yeah. Fuck that. Dude, I'm talking, you make, it's still at 55 and the thing, and at 55, the power is

the last thing to go. But the thing is the speed is still there. He's fucking terrifying. And I don't know what he did with, look at that, seriously. I don't know what he did with Roy Jones Jr., but in my mind it looked like they made some sort of an agreement where Mike wasn't going to punch him in the face. Because most of the hits that he hit him with,

unless it was a jab or something like that, was to the body. Yeah. Roy doesn't have any fighting. Well, Roy looked really good against Pettis. Yeah. I know, but Roy's been hit a lot. He has. He certainly has.

He needs to calm that down. As does Evander. Yeah, well, I think he just still loves it, though. He had a boxing match with Anthony P pettis and it was a very close match and he lost the split decision i thought he actually won the fight but it was a very good fight and you know anthony pettis is a legit fighter legit mma fighter i

mean it's not it's the first time he's ever boxed a guy like that but for roy to be able to do that and fight eight rounds at 54 years old yeah he still loves to compete. I mean, the guy was, in Roy's time when he was the champ, he was a fucking assassin. Oh, no doubt about it. Oh my God. He's got one left arm, have you ever seen his left bicep? It's like twice the size of his right. Because he was always throwing nasty hooks.

So it's like his style was like a lot of left hooks, not even a lot of jabs. So he has like one bicep that's twice the size of the other one. Like he flexes it, look at it. Whoa, isn't that crazy? It's crazy. Yeah, Roy in his prime was something really special.

His speed and his timing and everything. I mean, it's hard to see a guy like that fight way past his prime. Look at him there there like Jesus Christ look at that bicep that's insane look at his deltoids yeah no he was shredded when he was the champ he was on top of it I mean he was without a doubt in his prime one of the greatest of all time oh so much fun to watch oh my god there were assassinations he was like somewhere entertainment wise he was somewhere between like Prince Hasim Ahmed and like Mayweather right I mean he was like somewhere entertainment wise he was somewhere between like prince hasim

and like mayweather right i mean he was like as silly yeah but so technical oh my god he was he had a complete different style nobody knew what to do with him he would leap in with left hooks and just starch people he was so fast man people forgot but i see your point. Like, Evander bothers me. When I saw Evander, he boxed Vitor Belfort and got knocked out in the first round. I'm like, he does not need to be doing this. He's 60 years old. This is crazy. Yeah.

Is there a concussion that stands out to you as the hardest your bell ever got rung? Was there a moment or something? You know, to my knowledge, I've never had one. I'm sure I have. Oh, my God. How is that possible? No, I'm sure I have. But I don yeah but i mean you should there should have been some time in all these hours but i've been knocked out but i did back then when i'm talking about in the 80s and that

when we used to use the chairs and that right but it's funny if you don't know about it you know if you have an awareness which we all have an awareness now, then you feel something and you think, well, maybe I have a concussion. Yeah. You know, back then the only people that got concussions were football players. Wow, God forbid a wrestler couldn't get a concussion. So you just didn't even think of it. I didn't think of it, no. You know, with me and so many other guys, but with me, I just, I didn't even get stitches.

I just taped up, you know, the guys that need stitches. I said, when they finally got the staple gun, I said, put the staples in, but I'm not going to sit here and wait for the stitches. When they finally got the staple gun. This is all mind-boggling. The thing that surprised me. I put the Neosporin on, two pieces of tape, and I'm getting to the bar. two pieces of tape and I'm getting to the bar. The thing that surprises me the most is the note that you were able to avoid pain pills and that,

and that entire addiction the entire time with all the physical stuff. Like did you have a natural like hangover cure or something too? Cause mixing with the night, there has to be something you're like a medical anomaly. Yeah. Yeah. I can't believe you never had to take pain pills no I never have no as a matter of fact whenever look at this, knowing, knowing. Knowing that I have taken

two sledgehammer shots. Two, I've taken your two best sledgehammer shots. Jesus Christ, dude. Now, now, wherever you are, come out here and let's see what the Nature Boy

has got for you. Oh my gosh. The Nature Boy is in rare form tonight, coach. Look at this. Wow. I've crushed an airplane, hit my lightning, hit my sledgehammer. wild. Wow. You're covered in your own blood. Look at this young buck. How did you get that slice in your forehead?

Just cut it? Rigidly. How many times do you think you've done that over the course of your career? Oh, God. I used to do it every night. So hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of times. Thousands and thousands. Cutting yourself, but meanwhile you don't have scars

on your head, kind of crazy. Well you know what, because I cut this way, I didn't cut the guys with the bad scar, right now. You cut sideways. Yeah, I cut like this. A lot of the bad guys are like Abdul and that. But Hunter gave me a great boost of self-confidence too between he and vince

they they constantly kept me you know kept me going and that's really that made a big difference in my life if my career ended at wcw i wouldn't have the legacy that i have now and i wouldn't be here with you so i'm thankful Hunter, Vince, all those guys, the WWE for bringing me back in 2001. The steel chair matches, that's what I wanna talk about because how does someone take a steel chair to the head? There's no way to do that and not get fucked up. You just got fucked up. We try to hit each other as a glancing,

you know what I mean? You can, for me, as long as a guy is hitting me like this, I'm fine. I don't want it on top of the head. Hit me in the forehead. You know what I mean? I can take that all day long. Actually, I'd rather be. Have you ever seen Brock Lesnar hit the guys with the chairs?

Yes. I'd rather be hitting the head with a chair by Brock than on the back. Brock lays those metal chairs on the back rather than the way Brock does it. He's never hit me with one. The first time I had to wrestle Brock, it was so ridiculous. I go, look at Brock. It's a 56, okay? 56, 22, whatever you are.

F5. Easy, brother. Yeah, here's Brock Lesnar with a steel chair. Oh, Jesus Christ. Oh, my God. Oh, my God. Bro, he's fucking slamming these chairs. Oh, Jesus Christ.

Look at the chair. Oh, he's fucking slamming these chairs. Oh, Jesus Christ. Look at the chair. Oh, my God, dude. There's no way to not get hurt. Absolutely. You walk back into the locker room, you're going, shit. But you could hit him too hard. He didn't care. Brock's a Harley race, man.

Yeah. I have a question. Rocks on Harley Race, man. Yeah. I have a question. You once cut a promo when you were back in WCW and NWO and all that was happening. And you start taking off your Rolex and your clothes and you're threatening Eric Bischoff. And at one point, he's tearing up $100 bills. He's trying to get the owner of the WCW out.

You're going to come out of here. He handcuffs himself to the thing. Another. I mean, it is so funny. It's epic. He, for some reason you do an elbow drop on nothing at one point. My goodness. Starting to.

This is how I travel you jackass. I'm custom made from head to toe. Have been and always will be. You jackass. I'm custom made from head to toe. Have been and always will be. You jackass. Taking all of his clothes here. Shirts, suits, ties. That's me. I've lived the life of a king because the people have allowed me to.

Woo! It gets better and better. At one point. I will sign my house, my cars, whatever money I have, I'll sign it over to you. I will give you the satisfaction of saying you raped the nature boy. If you have the you-know-what to walk the aisle here tonight one more time. He called him out. Oh, wait.

You got to see him. He drops an elbow for no reason. What? What? The one stipulation. I think it's back, actually. It's right here. It's right here.

I ain't going home. Get your ass out here. Come on. Okay. I've been told we're going to be right back. Don't go away, please. Bischoff, you turn the camera off, and I'll be naked when you come back and at one point you're ripping up hundred dollar bills and you take off

gucci shoes and you throw them into the crowd did you ever get those back no I always wondered after I grew up older and learned about like production and stuff I'm like oh there must have been an assistant over there that he threw it out because there's no way just throw it launches it into the $2,000 shoe. Here he goes. This is it. Watch this. He's about to drop an elbow. There's nobody there.

There's something wrong with me. When you're out there doing this, did you have any plan? No. Nothing? No. Just free ball and the whole thing? Yeah. Did you know you were going to take your clothes off?

I had a plan, but I wasn't sure. I didn't run it by anybody because I knew he'd never go for it. How do you do it? What was your method of madness to that? Like that part, the cutting promo part of Ric Flair. You'd have a loose plan and you just let it rip? Or did you have any practice or anything? No, I just thought of it. We had been in that legitimate lawsuit.

Legitimately don't like each other to this day. I mean, we've agreed to agree. don't like each other to this day. I mean, we've agreed to agree, but I was pushed down so far in the company that the NWO was a featured act, which I didn't have a problem with,

but don't abuse me, right? So I was taking my son to the AU Nationals in Detroit. I'd asked the lawyer for the time off not missing Nitro, missing Thunder, the secondary show nobody went to, right? Right. And he sued me.

And he walked in front of about 85 people and said he was going to break me. Now he's an executive vice president of Turner. Going to break me, ruin my family, destroy me and all that. And so I could have sued. I would have been a multimillionaire, but then I wouldn't have been able to wrestle again. Right. So after I waited, I sat home for a year,

costing a million dollars, and I said, fuck it, I'll go back. Because they wouldn't give me a release. And they gave me my check each week, but the minute I cashed a check, then I would be admitting that I'd work for him again. So just another screw job. Then he ended up bankrupting the company anyway. Right. Or not he, the combination of things.

Right, exactly. He's going up against Vince McMahon. Well, they thought they were going to put Vince out of business. That's where they made the biggest mistake. Vince is a very smart guy. Hence the Attitude Era. Yeah. They had 83 weeks.

That's it. Right. Amazing. But you're, I guess what I'm asking is like, did you ever do any other forms of entertainment before? How were you able to cut promos like that? I never, I just thought about them on the road. Wow.

You know, listening to music. When you legitimately don't like somebody, it's not hard to say something about them. Right. Yeah, but it's not just saying something about them. It's taking all your clothes off, handcuffing yourself to the ropes. I'm just trying to get everybody's attention.

Clearly it worked. But it's so interesting how it becomes almost like a stand-up act. You figure out how to do it from doing it a lot. Yeah. Yeah. Well, every night was different. I mean, for me, there are two ways to get people mad in our business is to just be so damn good at it that you can say it, which I was at the time, and just know it, just not care.

Or you can do it because you're trying to gain that, to get in that position, trying to be that number one guy, trying to be something different. So I was always good at it. I could kind of throw on like that tomorrow, but I can't wrestle anymore. I could, but last time I tried that, we did good business, but I didn't hydrate. We would have had a hell of a match, but I got dehydrated.

So like what, how old were you when you stopped wrestling entirely? I had a match last summer. Whoa. Yeah, I was 73. Wow. We did 8,000 people in Nashville. Who'd you have a match with? It was me and my son-in-law And Andrade, against Jay Lethal and Jeff Jarrett.

And you were 73. Jesus. What's the record? Who's the oldest guy that's ever wrestled? Jerry Lawler. And Jerry just got real sick, though. Jerry wrestled lately. Not in the last six months.

Jerry got real sick. Oh, no. Yeah. We thought it was a stroke but it was actually a heart attack so and jerry doesn't drink or do any drugs whatsoever well time gets you eventually especially when you think about the all the punishment that you do to your body i mean who knows what the is going on after decades of that? It's crazy.

It's crazy that you were so durable. You were able to do it for so long. I mean, it has to have a lot to do with that strength and conditioning routine that you put yourself through. Yeah, I'm sure. Because of working out. Especially with my knees and the free squats all those years. 500 free squats every day for 10 years. I can't believe you don't have any knee problems.

That's right. I think it's because of the free squats that I don't, my hips and all that, I'm in a good place. What would you do, sets of 100? No, I would challenge myself. Actually, the hardest thing I ever did, I would change it, I would do sets of 100, and then I would say one day a week I'll do 500 without stopping.

So, but I always try to do it in less than 15 minutes. sets of 100, and then I would say one day a week I'll do 500 without stopping. But I always try to do it in less than 15 minutes. So I think my best, when you're by yourself, right, or just always playing games with yourself to see what you can do better. So I think I did 500, I think the best is like 13, something like that. 13 minutes for 500 body weights.

Non-stop, yeah. That's incredible. But the big thing I did for a long time over the years when I couldn't get to a gym in the old days, let's take a deck of cards and make the jokers 20, right? And do a joker, 20 free squats, 20 crunches, 20 push-ups. You do all that all the way through, it wouldes, 20 pushups. You do all that all the way through, it'll be 440 of each.

I've done that in 34 minutes. That's the sum of it, that's pretty hard. The pushups, by the time, even some, even if it's two, but it's 440 pushups, wherever it is. It's amazing how the old time wrestlers, like guys like Carl Gotch, you know that wound up training a lot of MMA fighters in catch wrestling, they really emphasize conditioning.

Oh yeah. Like Carl Gotch, you would have to go through like a year of his conditioning routine before he would teach you how to wrestle. Oh yeah, for sure. Vern got me the same way. All we did with Vern, outdoors in that barn, 30 degrees, 28 degrees it

was conditioned christ i weighed 300 ken patera weighed 330 just got back from munich you know we had to run two miles the first day the first day there we ran two miles in the cornfield i hadn't run a mile since i was playing freshman football at minnesota right and i was 230 then playing freshman football in Minnesota, right? And I was 230 then. Now I'm 310, training with Ken, right? And then the other guys, then we did 500 free squats, 250 push-ups, and 250 crunches. It took me six and a half hours.

I quit. I said, fuck this. I called Vern and said, I'm not coming back. He said, oh, yeah, you are. I didn't go back. He came over to my house, got me, slapped me, threw me out in my front yard, said, you quit. Everything you've ever done in life, you're not quitting on me.

Get in the fucking car. Wow. That was Vern Guy, and he was tough, man. Vern was. You ever think about if you didn't listen to him? Where you'd be? I'm glad I did it, but you couldn't convince me of that. You know, the worst thing is to blow a guy up.

We just can't. You're exhausted. And then get on top of it and hold you down or put a sugar on you. You know what I mean? That Billy Robinson, he killed us. You know, Iron Sheik, right? Sure, yeah. So Kaz was an Olympic caliber wrestler from Iran.

And freestyle, not to try to turn the caliber wrestler, right? From Iran. Mm-hmm. And freestyle. And that's where he had tried to turn the guy over, right? It was different than folk style. So Billy could never turn him over. So Billy said, get in a folk style position. So he got, I guess, and Billy dropped his knee right here into his thigh. He couldn't walk for a month so bad.

Mm. Then slapped him around and all that just we went through some crazy shit to get the business back then who was the first guy that hit somebody with a chair that's what i mean the steel chair thing to me is one of the most unbelievable because i know how many times you were doing that in a week like who was the first guy to do that i don't know god yeah i don't i don't know that one. Nobody's ever used it quite as effectively as Brock. Brock is taking the chair shots to a new level. It was probably at the first thing,

because there was steel chairs there for the crowd, so it's probably been forever. Yeah, just very rarely. In St. Louis, which was our home base you couldn't you couldn't even you you couldn't even grab the rope you're cheating you know what i mean yeah i'm wrestling dick the bruiser right and i go to sam um you know dick was like 56 or something i was just got became a champion said sam let me just grab the rope so i could so dick can put his shoulders down oh no no no you know this is when

wilbur snyder's woman winning with the abdominal stretch or verne's winning with the sleeper i mean none of that right but that's all and they but st louis loved it they had never saw anything else but you know so why weren't you allowed to grab the rope because in st louis it was against the rules and sam ran st louis like everything with the rules you know what i mean the rope grab uh in pro wrestling means that you can leverage you're getting extra power extra leverage behind the referee's back yeah anybody who has someone in a submission and if you grab rope, especially in a figure four leg lock, in fact, the other person is more hurt. First of their shoulders down. More pressure.

More pressure. And the ref stops them. It's kind of the equivalent to grabbing the octagon fencing, but it's more entertaining, I guess. I don't know how to say it. There's more magic involved. When you first saw the UFC, did you think that if you were a young man, you would have participated in that? Well, you know, it's funny you say that.

You know, I'm really good friends with Shamrock, right? So I'm with Jim Brown, the football player. And the first time Gracie wrestled Shamrock was in Charlotte, North Carolina. It was probably long before you got involved. And I went and I think Gracie laying on his back, I said this is bullshit, I'm not going back to this. I'm so glad they changed the rules because they'd sit that damn hold,

now the guys can't do that. That's a lot more action, but watching Gracie and those guys, with that gracie luck that was the most boring in the world no no that's hilarious watching him operate from his guard what's there to watch right i just saw kenny last month i love ken chamrock um well he was one of the first guys yeah sure fighter that went over to wwe yeah it was wwe at the time or wwf wwe wwe no no no no how old ken ken's gotta be close 57 maybe how old is ken shamrock he was the world's most dangerous man right yeah yeah yeah so he was the first like legit guy yeah to make it over there

i think so yeah yeah that was at the time like he had been going back and forth and you know that was like in the middle of his kind of in his prime right i mean he was he's a tough guy though right yeah but uh but he rocked versus ken shamrock 1998. Yeah? Oh, dude, he definitely could work. He was fucking jacked, too. Yeah. I mean, Ken Shamrock in his day was a bad man. Well, you would say he was, right?

Oh, yeah. I thought so, too. Oh, yeah. I mean, he was a real pioneer. What Shamrock did in those early days, I mean, when he ran the Lion's Den, that was one of the big things about the Lion's Den was the conditioning was fucking ruthless. They tried to break guys. If you wanted to train in that gym, they tried to break you.

It was legendary strength and conditioning routines. You had a whole crucible you had to go through to become a member. Yeah, he treats me with a lot of respect. He's a real nice guy. And I feel like it could have been really different, his rivalry with Gracie, if Gracie wasn't in the geek, right? Oh, sure. Yeah.

He would have been different, but also Gracie was at another level, jiu-jitsu-wise. Yeah. People just didn't understand Brazilian jiu-jitsu like those guys did. Right.

So even guys who had, like, good submissions, they didn't understand vulnerable positions. And the geese, so, like, everybody would grab it. Like, when Gracie

would get a hold of you, everybody would grab the gi, and that would play right into his hands next you know he's just pulling you on top of them and stretch your arm out hmm did you ever think that like when you were a young man if that was around that you would have done it no I didn't consider it I didn't I don't know I was already so wrapped up in wrestling I didn't think about it but I've always had a lot of respect for the people that do. Only a few guys have ventured.

CM Punk was the one who took the most chances, right? Because he didn't really have a martial arts background. Yeah. That was crazy. That was bad for everybody. I knew it was going to happen. I mean, I watched him hit the pads

and I'm like, there's no way. Oh, yeah. There's no way. There's nothing there. Yeah, there is no, oh, I'm going to do this with all my heart. Yeah. I'm not gonna. I'm gonna go I know I never saw me got killed right I got fucked up a couple of times He thought this kid Mickey Gall Mickey Gall ran over him like a freight train

And then he fought I think Mike Jackson Mike Jackson just kind of pieced him up But didn't didn't stop him, but he just wasn't good enough It's just so hard to do that in your 30s, to learn how to do MMA in your 30s when you don't really. He had a background. He's going to take a leak. He had a background in pro wrestling, but he didn't really have a background in martial arts.

So, I mean, I admire the fact that he was willing to take the challenge. That's what I admire, too. I mean, you're going to have halfway crazy to do that anyway. Yes, for sure. And he did do it the right way he went to rufus sport which is like an elite top quality mma gym he trained with world-class guys it just takes so long to acquire those skills and if in certain skills with certain body types if you don't learn how to strike when you're really young yeah it's very difficult it's very diff, it's depending upon the person,

some people can pick it up in their 30s, but with a lot of guys, if they don't learn how to strike when they're young, they just don't have that speed and ability, they just. What do you think would've happened if Brock would've started right away? He would've been a world elite, greatest of all time. If someone taught Brock Muay Thai

and submission moves when he was a kid and he went into MMA with his kind of physicality, he would have dominated. What did you think of Jon Jones? He's a bad man. Jon's a bad man. He's just so good.

He just knows how to win. He murdered that kid. He just took him down, strangled him quick. He's on another level from those guys. You're never going to beat John if you're like sort of a middling guy. It takes like another world champion to put him to the test. And he's beaten so many world champions. I mean, he's beaten everybody.

Yeah. John, I mean, he's only had one loss in his entire career. That was a bullshit loss. It was a loss where he was destroying someone. He was using a 12-to-6 elbow, which should be legal anyway. It's just a remnant of the old rules. And that was against Matt Hamill, and he just beat the fuck out of that dude. It wasn't a loss.

So no one's ever really beaten John. Yeah. Think Brock could have gotten in there with him? That would have been very interesting. Yeah. Because Brock was so fucking big, and Brock's wrestling was so good. Yeah. Think Brock could have gotten there with him? That would have been very interesting. Yeah. Because Brock was so fucking big. And Brock's wrestling was so good. Yeah.

And, you know, when that guy shot a power double, it was like getting hit by a bus. Yeah. He was so big. Yeah. It would be interesting. But Cain Velasquez beat Brock up a couple of times. Yeah. And I think John is at least at that level.

Oh, yeah. But the thing about Cain was, Cain, he would hit you with a volume of times. And I think John is at least at that level. Oh, yeah. But the thing about Kane was, Kane, he would hit you with a volume of striking. Like for a heavyweight, Kane Velasquez, he had the craziest gas tank of all time. Kane's cardio was just off the charts. Yeah, I got that on pretty well. He came over to us for a while. Yeah? Yeah.

That's right, he did. Right. And he had that kind of weird fake mma match with brock yeah over yeah and saudi yeah why didn't he stick with pro wrestling do you know jane um tony what happened with uh came the last time he didn't make the progress that they thought he would he's a real nice guy. Yeah. They just messed that whole thing up tremendously. It was crazy. They tried to make a fake actual fight, and it was just a nightmare. And it just didn't.

Yeah, they put on MMA gloves, right? Yeah. They tried to make it like this is the guy that beat Brock in the UFC, so he's going to come here and really put a working on him. But Brock's such a freak athlete like so well-rounded even though kane's a great fighter yeah it's just you have to you have to have pop you have to be there yeah you have to be larger than life you have to entertain yes and he was more of like just a stoic fighter yeah yeah they were doing low leg kicks, which is, again, like, you know, it's just, it ain't flying in the WWE.

It's boring. In the UFC, it's unbelievable when you hear that crack and it's real. But you know that Kane does, like, crazy lucha libre pro wrestling, too, where he jumps up in the air and scissors someone's legs and flips over. He can do all that shit, too. Yeah, but Rey Mysterio taught him all that shit. Oh, that's who taught him. Yeah, he and Rey are best friends. He's another guy that shit, too. Ray Mysterio taught him all that shit. Oh, that's who taught him. Yeah, he and Ray are best friends. He's another guy that fought MMA, didn't he?

I don't think Ray Mysterio did. Didn't Ray have an MMA fight? No. Did he have a fake MMA fight? No. I don't think so. No. Why did I think he did?

Oh, I know why. Because there was another guy that had a mask on that fought Crow Cop in Pride. They had a pro wrestler who fought with a mask on. That's why I get confused with Rey Mysterio. Yeah. Who was that guy? Crow Cop fought some dude and head kicked him, and you see the blood trickling out of his mask. Who was that?

Oh, Dos Carlos Jr. Oh, yeah. So they had an actual real fight for some strange reason, and Crow Cop was one of the absolute scariest kickboxers of all time. And for some reason, this dude agreed to have a fight with him, like an actual fight. So imagine, watch this. Boom. And look, you see the blood just dripping out of his helmet they're not showing it yet that guy's pretty tough oh my god he was terrifying

merco crocop was a destroyer what's he doing now uh crocop still had some fights up until i think he's retired now but he had a bunch of kickboxing fights fairly recently. He had some MMA fights fairly recently. I mean, that guy's a real legend. Yeah. Wow. The crossover between MMA and UFC, or UFC rather, and pro wrestling is like there's a lot of guys I know that entertained it but really when you're thinking i mean other than ken shamrock going from mma to uh wwe very few guys other than brock and who else was it besides brock and cm punk is there anybody else who did it bobby lashley yeah actually bobby actually fought a bunch of legit

mma rights ronda ronda went back oh he went the other way though yeah she went over there Ronda Ronda went back. Oh, he went the other way though. Yeah, she went over there Yeah going from pro wrestling to Batista did you see? Batista had a real enemy fight. Yep. Yeah. Yeah, he won. Yeah See if you find that I mean wasn't the most impressive fight, but he had a real fight. Yeah, real legit MMA fight He's a great guy. I Think it's great for people that, you know, are done getting beat up in the UFC

to get to have a career afterwards. Ronda and Charlotte Flair's rivalry was insane. I mean... What about Matt Riddle? Matt Riddle's another guy. Went over from MMA into WWE. And thriving. Thriving.

And, you know, he kind of got fucked over in MMA. He tested positive for weed. And that's how he got kicked out of the UFC. Which now is Dan Severin, of course. Oh, yeah. That's right. Dan Severin went over and... Well, Dan Severin did a lot of pro wrestling matches before and after he did MMA.

That's right. Forgot about Dan. Yeah. Oh, and Fry never wrestled i'm keeping it don fry never wrestled didn't he do something in japan not not with us so no with us japan's got a whole different scene huh yeah you know uh i'm good friends with josh barnett and josh barnett does a lot of commentary for pro wrestling done he's done a bunch of pro wrestling over in Japan. And it's like the feel of it in Japan is so,

that's why Pride got so big. The reason why Pride got so big is they had guys like Takata, who was like a big pro wrestling champion over there who fought Hicks and Gracie in a real fight. So their pro wrestling over there was giant. It was, oh my God. When I was going over there was giant it was oh my god when I was going over there

in the 70s 80s pull that microphone up to you oh when I was going over there in the 70s 80s

it was incredible we had the two companies All Japan New Japan Enoki and Baba

it was huge and Brody and Hanson were making if I'm not mistaken in the 80s were making like

15 to 20 maybe 25,000 a week apiece. Wow. And going over there 30 weeks a year. Wow. 30 weeks a year. What's it like partying in Japan? Partying with the Yakuza? Roppongi, man.

Unbelievable. What's it like? Oh, Joe. Tell me. Talk to me. Can you it like? Oh, Joe. Tell me. Talk to me. Can you sing karaoke? Woo! Woo!

What was your go-to song? What would you sing over in Japan? I didn't sing. I just went in there and talked to the girls. Wow. No suspicious minds in the jukebox? No. No karaoke.

Just the women serving the drinks. It's $100 American for a beer. You're in the right place. Is it really? Almost. That was $25 for a Diet Coke in Tokyo. Wow. Yeah.

The bars over there are expensive. That's why you've got to find the sponsors. Being a world champion, I always had someone who wanted to take me out. And then there's Shinjuku, where all the bathhouses are. That's a whole different story, too. What's that like? That's like walking the red carpet

and getting a bath. With all kinds of candles around you, liquor, and beautiful Japanese women. Did you ever have a night or a week or a month or something flair son you want korean barbecue or shinjuku shinjuku please can i bring friends was there ever a time where you were with so many women having so much fun was there ever a moment

where you're like man maybe i should settle down a little bit. Like, this is a crazy day. No. It was not even a half a millisecond there. It was not, oh, yeah, I can't, what a waste of time. Having that experience, only when the ATM,

when my ATM card ran out. So when you would go over there, how long would you stay in Japan for? Only a week at a time. The longest I was there was for 14 days. But Japan is fun. But Tokyo, the big cities are great. The small towns, not so much.

Actually, when I started going in the 70s, there was still a little bit of hostility. Oh, towards Americans? Yeah, in the small towns for sure they wouldn't even let you in your restaurants at night so i mean all that's gone now but you know that's a lot a lot a lot went down between us and them yeah a little bit yeah a few things happened yeah so when you would go over there to to wrestle like how would that work out did you because those guys do they speak english did you just kind of like that work out did you because those guys do they speak english did you just kind of like figure it out as you were wrestling figure it out and the referee

you'll kind of go back and forth and back then you know the now now the japanese wrestlers are like there's a few of them but in the old days those guys were all tougher than man i mean there was no kid you were just going to play around with. They were all rough. They wanted to prove themselves. They wanted to climb a ladder. It was a nightmare for me because I'm not tough. I can do anything. You can beat me up. When I'm wrestling, Jumbo Ceruto was an Olympian.

What year? 82 Olympian or 80 Olympian. It was a long night. German suplexes. You know, he was a greco-roman wrestler so i'm not afraid of anything i just can't do much with those guys i saw a bunch of uh videos of uh japanese pro wrestling that turns into an actual fight whether you know it like they thought it was a work and it turns out to be a shoot and you you're seeing a guy recognizing in the middle of the match that this is an actual fight

and the guy beats the fuck out of that guy. Yeah, yeah, they do, yep. Wow. I don't know if they do anymore, but they did, yep. See if we can find some of those, because some of, who did we, was it Barnett that showed it to us, I think? But some of them are fucking absolutely brutal.

Oh yeah. It's just basically like an MMA fight. The guy's soccer kicking the guy in the face and pounding on him. That's crazy. When you would go over there, if you're going to have a wrestling match with a Japanese pro wrestler,

how did you know? Did you guys talk about it in advance, like who was going to win or how the person? Yeah, yeah. How would that work? You'd have a... Very few of them could speak fluent. I think they understand you but they can't talk

I mean they understand our language enough but there's always a communicator referee going back and forth but you never know I mean I had some great matches over there and I had some they looked okay but they weren't good. Does that make sense?

I couldn't hang with the guys because I'm a good amateur wrestler. I just couldn't hang with, I mean, I wrestled in high school and state champion and that stuff. But those kids over there are all there. It's all they have. They're either going to make it to the big time or they're not. And then, you know, I suppose like anybody over here, if you don't make it doing that, what are you going to do? So would you know someone's ability before you got in there in the ring with them? Oh, yeah. I'd know what you're talking about. So you knew this guy was an Olympic wrestler. Yeah, yeah. They sent Harley with me one time.

That's an embarrassing story. But they called me and said they want to switch the title and we're not going to let them do it. And I said to them, I'm sending Harley with you to make sure they don't. So Harley had to stand outside the ring. Oh, because they were gonna try a double cross? Yeah. Oh, so how would they do something like that? Like you would think that you were gonna win.

Jumbo would just beat me if he tried to, but they wouldn't dare with Harley. I've seen Harley race. So the guy's name is Jumbo Sruida. He's an Olympian, right? He passed away, God rest his soul. But he suplexed Harley one night without

telling Harley he was going to do it. So Harley walked in the dressing room, lit up a cigarette, said to me, come here. We walked into the Japanese locker room. Baba sitting there, seven foot Baba, right? Smoking a big Roy Tan cigar.

Saruta's there. Harley walks over to Saruta. If you ever suplex me again without telling me beforehand, I will beat the fucking

shit out of you right here in front of Baba and your friends. Whap! And he slapped him across the face. The fucking iron sword knocked the sword out sideways. He looked at Baba and said... Walked out. So a move like a suplex is something you would have discussed in advance because you had

to know how to follow. What happened was that those Germans, they drop on your head half the time. It's a belly to back collegiate wrestling. There's only a couple of guys that can really do it safely. I mean, Brock, obviously. Kurt Angle's phenomenal. Kurt's a great athlete. Olympic gold medalist. Yeah, but he...

With a broken neck. Yeah, yeah, I know. And a really badass. But so many guys, they see this, oh, I can do a German. Well, shit. And that's not everybody. I can't give a guy a safe German.

I can give it to him, but it doesn't mean it's going to be safe. And then you land on the back your head you land on the back your neck You know your cartwheels yourself, you know, if you're taking a cartwheel if you're landing and rolling over your shoulder You're taking it way too high. Yeah, what's the land right here? Here it is right here boom Yeah, you see Kurt doing that's perfect kurt is you notice how he's bringing him down he's hitting his shoulders first exactly yeah yeah he's just ragged on this dude yeah he's got complete control that's a guy who's done that probably 150 000

fucking times yeah look how and effortlessly he does kurt has unbelievable strength yeah obviously Kurt has unbelievable strength. Yeah, obviously. Guy's a gorilla. Yeah. Yeah. I asked Dana one time what he thought Kurt would have done. He said Kurt would have been phenomenal.

Phenomenal. Yeah. Who's going to stop that guy from taking him down? Yeah. In MMA? So quick. Yeah. Oh, my God.

Yeah. When you get to that level of wrestling, I say that wrestling is the absolute best skill, the most important skill in MMA. Because if you're in there with an elite wrestler, like Bo Nickel, he's a guy who just entered into the UFC, elite amateur wrestler, who just had his first MMA fight against a good solid, Jamie Pickett, who's like a good solid mid-level MMA fighter. He just fucking manhandled him. The difference in the ability to control bodies, the way those wrestlers are, and the thing about a real elite wrestler is you're always worried he's gonna take you down,

so he's gonna be able to hit you easier too, because he's like faking shots and throwing punches, because the threat of the takedown is so real. It makes the toughest athletes the strongest mentally because the grind is so rough. It's so hard. The training is so fucking hard in amateur wrestling and amateur sport. I don't think there's anything harder than wrestling. And those guys, when they come over to MMA, they also have a different mindset.

They're just tougher. They're just fucking tougher than – I mean, there's elite tough kickboxers, there's elite tough everybody in this world. But just in sheer numbers of wrestlers, those guys are just fucking tougher, man. There's no glory in it. If you want to get, I mean, the glory is all in being recognized by your peers and people who know wrestling. Nobody's going to give a shit at the grocery store.

Nobody gives a shit on the ESPN. Those guys that are the leader, the Jordan boroughs of the world. Yeah, those guys are just respected by people who know yeah beating people with your hips With everything yeah with with speed with technique with everything undefeated Khabib It always freaked me out when I'd see him put his and when he would already have to somebody on their back and you'd put His legs underneath their legs, so now their feet are just kind of up in the air. And now there's nothing. Now you don't even, you didn't have a chance anyway,

but now you can't even begin to have a chance. Those Sambo guys are the masters at that. Combat Sambo. Gordon Ryan is the best Brazilian jiu-jitsu practitioner really ever. He's openly said that that's better than jujitsu for MMA. That style, because it's wrestling and then control, and then their submissions are all based on top control.

And they're so good at it. They're so good at it. That's awesome. Do you watch UFC now? Oh, yeah. Who do you like to watch? Well, I like... You created Conor McGregor, so... I just watched john jones and i'm i'm going to

juliana's fight oh nice in vancouver yeah juliana's having a rematch with amanda nunez yeah crazy yeah i guess there's not that much compelling in that weight class other than another fight and since juliana beat her once and amanda beat her the second time, it's going to be interesting. Juliana's a tough cookie, man. Yeah, my God, she's strong. She's tough as shit. I grabbed her one time. Chad, the guy I'm in business with, is her manager.

And we had a Blackhawk game, and she didn't have her daughter with her. She always carried her daughter, right? So I went up behind her and grabbed her. I said, let's see you guys do this. And I really grabbed her. I always played with her. Brother, she was gone. And I really l i really latched on her she's gone like that yeah well she's at the peak of her prime right now yeah she's a serious grappler too when she

got a man in nunez's back and strangled her holy what a upset that was yeah how many have you been to live um three or four do you enjoy it yeah yeah yeah i love it i've gotten to know dana fairly well he's always really he's the man yeah great guy he's no better person to be running no god unreal it's just like vince running wwe yeah dana running ufc the same same sort of thing like you can't imagine that anybody else doing that job You know, I have it in my contract when he leaves I'm gone Wow Yeah, well, he won't leave he's like Vince. What's he gonna do? He might leave got a lot of fucking money I think one day it's gonna I don't know though. He loves it though. He loves it. Yeah, so does Vince I'm loves the setups. I can call Dana at one o'clock in the morning. We'll talk for three hours on fights. Just talk

Wow, just talk about this that and we got this going he's telling me secret yeah i'm like what else is going on telling them about negotiations and all the behind the scenes stuff and yeah it's ariel ariel's got a good job with them right ariel hawani yeah no ariel is independent now he does his own thing oh i, I thought he worked with Endeavor. No, he did at one point in time. No, they don't get along. He doesn't get along with Dana for some reason. Well, there's reasons, but I don't have a problem with Ariel. I like Ariel, and I think his show's great.

He's really good at interviewing people. He gets a lot of great athletes on, great fighters on. But he's got his own thing now, which is working out very well for him. He was with Fox for a while. He was with ESPN for a while, but I don't know if he's working with other people as well. I don't want to speak out of school, but I know his show's very successful. Yeah. Oh, he's a nice guy.

I just saw him at WrestleMania. He's always been pretty nice to me. I'm friends with his uncle. His uncle's Gad Saad, the evolutionary... What is he? Is he... What is his... He's a biologist, right?

What is Gad Saad? He's a professor. But a very intense intellectual and a really fun guy. And he just happens to be Ariel's uncle, which is hilarious. That's fantastic. Ariel was pretty tough, too, right? Is he? Was he?

I don't know. I don't think he ever fought. I don't think so. I don't even know if he trained. Oh, he did. He looks like he did. Are you scared of him? No.

What are you trying to say? No, but I thought he fought at one time. I don't believe so. Oh, okay. I could be wrong. I've never heard that. Well, you would know. Yeah, but I don't know everybody who trained.

I'm always shocked at some of the people. He's well built. He's very well spoken, too. Very smart guy. But I'm always shocked at how many guys don't train that are involved in MMA. It's kind of interesting because I don't know how you'd really understand what's happening unless you have some physical ability yourself. Because especially when he goes to the ground,

to be able to see where the vulnerabilities are and see the transitions, you kind of have to train. I don't understand how you couldn't to really be to really be able to judge it and understand it you ever thought about doing some jiu-jitsu no i thought about a lot of things over the years but did you learn any catch wrestling did you learn any of that real old school submission stuff no no, no, no. I mean, I've had it demonstrated to me in used time. I'm sure. No. He had no desire to learn that while you were hanging out with those guys?

No, I wasn't hanging out with them. I remember I'd just go to see them. They broke me in, but I didn't hang out with them. Okay. Billy Robinson was a real catch wrestle. Billy was trained by a guy by Gotch. So, you know, only a few of those guys around were they could hurt your bad boy oh my god yeah yeah the catch wrestling was a particularly brutal style of of grappling in england yeah it was really tough because they

started out with real submission moves yeah i mean it it was wrestling, but it was also real submission moves. And those guys physically were... They were such fucking specimens. You know who Farmer Burns was? Mm-mm. Farmer Burns was a legendary catch wrestler, and one of his stunts that he used to do, he would do a dead man's hang.

He would drop from a hang rope, and his neck was so fucking thick from neck bridges that he could literally hang there with a fucking no rope and his neck was so fucking thick from neck bridges that he could literally hang there with a fucking noose around his neck and support his weight. There's photos of it. See if you can find Farmer Burns. He was famous for doing this,

but he was just a fucking tank of a man who would go to these carnivals and he would engage in pro wrestling things. Look at this. Yeah. Wow. Look at him, bro. He's literally hanging by his fucking neck.

Jesus Christ. I mean, how insane? I mean, these are different fucking human beings. Yeah. This is a different time of the world. I mean, even look at the way they're built. They're just strong. It's not bodybuilder muscles.

These guys are just animals. That was Farmer Burns. Wow. And so those, this, like, he has a bunch of instructionals, like images and stuff that you could see that are real moves that people still use in MMA today. Like, a lot of that catch, and Josh Barnett was the best at that. He was probably the very best at transitioning catch wrestling and using it not just in submission matches. Like, he submitted Heron Grac gracie he submitted dean lister he submitted some legit guys with catch wrestling moves in like grappling tournaments and in mma and you know he's a but that's that he's from that

same old school though learned all that stuff from guys like billy robinson learned all those strength and conditioning moves did all the mace work and shit like Those guys all use steel maces for conditioning all that stuff that you're seeing today like that on it does all that functional strength does Those guys were way ahead. Yeah way ahead. They were doing that way back then They were some of the best fucking condition athletes ever Yeah And that's where it all started out. It all started out with like legit wrestling.

And then it became pro wrestling when they realized like, look, we're doing all these, we can't have an actual fight every night. So it became this thing. Thank God. Thank God, right? Guys like me came along. Yeah.

Yeah. I didn't mind doing the hour, but I didn't want to fight all the night. Who bought it? Do they ever bring you in to talk to young wrestlers? Like to give them like- Yeah. Yeah. I didn't mind doing the hour, but I didn't want to fight all night about it. Do they ever bring you in to talk to young wrestlers? Yeah, they just did. Yeah? What is that like?

It's fun. They had me come to an interview class for NXT while they were in L.A. I'm sorry. They had me come into an interview class. Now they're on this program where they're hiring or bringing nothing but college athletes, D1 college athletes, into the training center. So when they're in L.A., they've brought in, I want to say, 50 or maybe even 100, I think it was 50, college athletes from all over the country. And we went to UCLA, and they had them do endurance training.

Then they had them come to a seminar where I talked about how to learn how to interview, which is really hard to explain because it's got to come from here. It's got to come from here. Yeah. And the biggest problem is really if they got 100 people, let's say, at NXT right now, out of that 100 people, 1% might make it. I was trying to figure out today, I'm with a friend of mine who used to work there. In the last five years, of all the kids over there, right?

Rhea Ripley, Austin Theory. That's in the last three years, right? Yeah. Okay, now think about that. And prior to that, it's been 10 years since I actually went there. The biggest group they had to come up one time, which revolutionized the women's division was when Sasha Charlotte, my daughter,

Bailey and Becky Lynch came up. Then the whole thing started to change around. Oh, totally. Yeah. And then his daughter literally changed it. It used to be called the divas champ. It was like all overly. It was like bad.

There was no respect towards women whatsoever. And to their credit, they basically did that. It's almost not even a Vince thing. Then Ronda came, which gave it a big shot. But the only one that wasn't afraid of Ronda was my daughter. Then my daughter, Ronda, would tear it down. Oh, my God. Literally the best

women's wrestling matches ever because she's not afraid of her so that the key thing with ronda because she was ronda was ragged down with the judo right yeah and those girls weren't just us wrestling you know the people that knew both are like this might not go good for Ronda. But meanwhile, because of the judo, she was such a natural wrestler. So she was putting on a fucking multi-multi-million dollar show all the time. I love Ronda. She's so great at promo, too.

She's so great at playing a badass. Because you think she's not going to be. It's almost like a misdirect. It's like when we've had some comedians that might be a little bit crazy, and we're like, let's go watch their set and see how it goes and they're like they're dialed in geniuses you know what i mean yeah that's like that at wrestlemania where she came out of the crowd with the rock and she was throwing stephanie around and then hunter i mean she's phenomenal oh yeah but

as far as the girl matches my daughter is the only one who's not afraid of her she's the most successful to ever go over from MMA other than, well, Brock started at pro wrestling, but she's the most successful, right? By far, yeah. The transition, by far. Yeah, Brock number one, her number two. And for good reason, both of them.

It's not like, oh, they really made that entertaining or they learned that one little trick. No, it was. They were ready. Those are pure athletes that that's what you need to be. And they earned their keep. I think sometimes the talent gets jealous

of people just coming in and out and all that. Well, Ron and Brock have paid the price. I mean, what are you going to say? Yeah, you can't say shit. It's Ron DeRozzi, motherfucker. It was Brock Lesnar. Do what you please. Thank you for coming. Thank you.

Yeah, Brock flirted a couple times with coming back, and I really thought he was, because that guy really loves to fight. I mean, you know he loves pro wrestling, but he really loves real fighting, too. Yeah. You know, it wasn't for that diverticulitis where he had to get,

I think he got like six inches of his intestines removed. It was a fucking major surgery. Yeah. Big, big deal. For him to come back, and then he fought Alistair Overeem back in the very loose drug testing days. And Alistair Overeem came in there looking like a fucking science project. And kicked Brock in the stomach. Like right where he had had the surgery.

And it was rough. Yeah. No, Brock's a tough guy. I have a lot of respect for him. Guy beat Randy Couture when Randy was in his prime, and I think it was only his fourth MMA fight, which is bananas to become the UFC heavyweight champion. And, like, beat Randy Couture.

I mean, he was a lot bigger than Randy for sure, but still. Randy is legit. To beat that guy and to stop him? Brock was so big. He was so ridiculously big. He's still big. Yeah. Yeah.

Yeah, still big. Much respect. Yeah. Look at the size difference between the two of them. That was an incredible fight, though. I mean, Randy was so understated. Look at the size of Brock. That, like, literally, it doesn't even look like a real human. I mean Randy was so under look at the size of Brock I mean that like literally

it doesn't even look like a real human it was a good fight though it's just the size difference was just way too much I mean and Brock could fight he could fight I mean he fought Frank Mir

like I think it was only his third MMA fight I think he fought one Mir. Like, I think it was only his third MMA fight. I think he fought one Japanese guy in L.A. I was there for that. That was the outdoor event. I think that was a K-1 event. And then he fought Heath Herring, steamrolled Heath Herring. And then Frank Mir caught him in a leg lock and tapped him.

It was nasty because he wasn't, like, the referee didn't stop it quick enough. And Frank was still cranking on his leg. Yeah, he said It was nasty. Because he wasn't, like, the referee didn't stop it quick enough. And Frank was still cranking on his leg. Yeah, he said Frank was tough. Frank was elite. He was so good off his back, too. Would fuck guys like Frank up, or guys who fought Frank, it's very unusual that a guy who's that big is so good fighting off of his back. And when Brock went to the ground with Frank,

Frank just laced up a leg and started rolling into a leg bar see if you find that because there's a dangerous position no Brock said it well not only did it hurt but I think I looked like Brock was gonna kill the guy yeah all of a sudden tables turned that fast well Frank Mayer is a legit martial artist and one of the best submission artists to ever fight in the UFC. I mean, that guy broke two world champions' arms. Two. Two elite guys. Tim Sylvia and

Nogueira. So here it is. He's on top. He gets a hold of the leg. Now this is so dangerous. Like the position this is in, like he's tapping and Mazzagati doesn't stop it quick enough. Like, that's an extra two or three cranks on that knee that he just did not need there so then they had a rematch and the rematch he beat the out of frank yeah it was her

his face looked like like people had said that it was like he was eating strawberries and just smashed his face into strawberries yeah speaking of leg locks how did you come up with the figure four oh I'm a I was a third guy to use that first was Buddy Rogers then Jack Briscoe Jack Briscoe was tough they're 31 and 0 his senior year at Oklahoma junior year at Oklahoma State, 31 and 0, 31 pins. No one took them down. Jesus. Yeah, Jack Briscoe was a badass brother. Is that Gerald Briscoe's? Brother.

Wow. Jack Briscoe. So he invented the figure four? No, Buddy Rogers did, but Jack used it. It never worked for me. I never beat anybody with it. I just put it on. So you said he got a girl pregnant?

Everybody turned it over on me. When Jack put it on. So you said he got a girl pregnant? Everybody turned it over on me. When Jack put it on, it worked. If you roll over in a figure four, it reverses the polar of the energies. Even though. Nobody. Jack wasn't hardly raised tough, but nobody played with Jack either. Nobody. And I'll tell you another real badass was Danny Hodge.

You would love Danny Hodge. What did you say about Jack? Jack got someone pregnant? He got a girl pregnant. He was going to the Olympics. He would have won the Olympics. Can you imagine being 31 in Oklahoma State in their heyday with 31 pins and never getting taken off? Nobody took him down.

Wow. Think about that. And then he got a girl pregnant and that ended his career. His amateur career. As an amateur wrestler. He had to get into pro wrestling for money. Wow.

But he made a lot of money and they were successful. And I see Gerald now once in a while. Gerald was real tough too. Yeah, he's a big comedy fan. We put on the first ever, we got a full-size wrestling ring right before the pandemic and we put it in the main room of the comedy store.

And me and my buddies, we wrote a whole event. Literally 90% of the card went on to, I mean, huge AEW stars. It's crazy. But back then they were just about to break, and we had the most fun, and Gerald Briscoe said that is the greatest

first-time wrestling show he's ever seen. Oh, good, yeah. We had a blast. He would know. Yeah, he was Vince McMahon's right-hand man. You had that at the Comedy Store? Yeah. In the mail?

It barely fit between, we were on the stage at a table, like a podcast, and the ring barely fit from the we were on the stage at a table, like a podcast, and the ring barely fit from the front of that red stage to where the booths were. It was all a wrestling ring. Really? It was the coolest thing ever. How come I never saw this?

What year was this? This was right before the pandemic. Everything was moving so fast. We were actually just about to announce the second one. Did we get this here? Oh yeah, I got- What happened to you? moving so fast we were actually just about to announce the second one and uh oh yeah i got uh what's up with you uh rowdy rowdy piper's daughter choked me out because i said even she was in the crowd and i go he always told me that i was his favorite he didn't even like you and she came it was crazy crowds booing me i put this all on myself i was the back i was full heel

you must have been in your glory oh we had the best time ever that is so tony hitchcliff look at you with the fucking that's a different thing that's i'm playing the macho man we did an all wrestler roast where everybody was different wrestlers and someone was rick flair i was the macho man there's been a lot of wrestling in the i did a wrestling podcast ratty rotty was always at the store and he was a great mentor he actually i did i never heard of the playing card workout thing until i worked out with him once yeah throwing up in a trash can in the first 15 minutes turn into cards oh yeah there it is oh that's david arqu Now, he's another guy.

He got heavily into wrestling, right? Yeah. I mean, like touring and very serious about it. We brought the Shockmaster back for the first time ever. He's trying to... What is he doing? He's trying to not fall. Wait, you were there for that.

I was there. It was on my show. Oh, that you have to see. That we have to pull up for Joe. The actual Shock. It was on my show. Oh, that you have to see. That we have to pull up for Joe. The actual Shockmaster is one of the greatest things in wrestling history. So there's four guys on one side and three guys on the other, and they're about to announce their partner. But the thing is, it was just a guy who'd been through his tugboat, right?

He had already been through a bunch of characters. It was Dusty's brother-in-law. He was? Yeah, he's was just his brother-in-law he was yeah he's just his brother oh wow i didn't know that but anyway hold on hold on one second i have to set this up properly so so they're arguing this and that and then they go we're about to announce our partner and they're trying to make it exciting but it's just this guy and and the and the production people didn't have enough time to to like really do anything so they went they bought a stormtrooper helmet like a Star Wars helmet and they just put silver glitter all over it so they have this like guy that's already been a bunch of characters but they need them right now

they wouldn't they want to make this big entrance and the other guys all thought it was so dumb that they put a piece of wood. Well, I'm just going to let you watch what happens because it's so legendary. I'm not going to let Sting tell the people who the secret partner is going to be. All I have to say is our partner is going to shack the world because he is none other than the Shack Master! Hurrah!

The Shack Master! Oh! Oh, God. Oh, God. Oh, God. Oh, God. Oh, God. Oh, God.

Oh, God. Oh, God. Oh, God. Oh, God. Oh, God. Oh, God. Oh, God. He's got his tarp choo-roo helmet with glitter on it. This is so dumb. I don't care who you are, boy. I don't give a damn who you are. So real quick, hold on, pause it real quick. So right now, so there's another guy off the stage with a microphone

who's supposed to be doing the voice of the shock master because they couldn't put a microphone inside the helmet but the guy didn't know that the shock master was going to fall like that so he's literally cracking up he's holding him he's off screen dying of laughter but he's supposed to be going i'm the shock master i'm going to and he's supposed to be reacting to that but what ends up happening is the guy's cracking up that's supposed to be doing the Shockmaster's voice. I'm just glad I was gone. Yeah, and what's epic about this, and everybody knows it, is that if you watch from the beginning, Rick gravitates out the back door.

He leaves basically the promo as the thing goes on, because somehow you knew that the shit was about to hit the fan completely. There's my wife Wendy Wendy, in the corner. Get a shot of Wendy. Back row, right there. That's your wife now. Yeah. 30 years we're together.

I knew each other. So the whole thing is just, it's the career. Yeah, that's true. Right, so start it at the fall again and know now that you know that there's supposed to be another guy. But he doesn't know that the guy that's supposed to be doing his voice

is laughing. So when Sid starts yelling to cover for the fall, he's reacting to his voice. I don't care who you are, boy! his voice. So he's going like that because he thinks that's his... Now the guy... So you're the man that rules the world. They call me the shock master long enough vicious oh my god come on you want a piece of me you want a piece of he has to pretend like he's scared at me i'm ready this is the most low budget shit of all time yeah

yeah that was that was WCW back in the day that's what Vince was competing with yeah just laughing it up

sorry that's that's fun times man yeah when you look back on all of it I mean it's gotta be you gotta be proud I mean of it, I mean, you've got to be proud.

I mean, what an amazing career you've had. Oh, I am. I mean, there's been some ups and downs, but I've survived. That's an important thing. Well, it's great that now you have another thing, too. I'm on Joe Rogan's show. That's big time. You don't know how many people I've said,

can I tell them about it? No, don't tell anybody. Don't want it to be a surprise. I want to tell everybody. People are going to be pumped. I'm really happy that you're doing this cannabis business now, too. I love it when guys find a new thing where they can, here it is, the woo-choos. Putting the woo back in hemp-derived cannabis as only the nature boy can.

And where can anybody buy this stuff? God, we're in 15 states now. The ones where it's legal. Yeah. Where are you living these days? I live in Tampa. But my wife's got two places, or we have two places in Rosemary Beach, 38. You're familiar with that area up there?

Up by Destin. Okay. And then we have a home in Atlanta. Nice. But she calls my place a fraternity house. She just comes for a week at a time. I'm right in the water there at Channel Side. Tampa's phenomenal.

It's nice. Yeah, I ride my boat every day and play around with the cannabis. It is nice that you have this new stream of revenue, too. Yeah, absolutely. I signed autographs for Fitterman. I got to give Ryan Fitterman a shout-out, man. He pays me a lot of money. So it's a good deal.

I'm living a good life. And so you essentially just travel around with this cannabis company? Cannabis and then travel around with Ryan at sporting memorabilia shows, Comic-Con, stuff like that. Nice. Yeah, very nice. Enjoying it? Loving it.

It's so great that you've got such a great source of revenue after the career. More than I ever made. That's amazing. Two and a half times more than I ever made. That's great. That's great to hear. At 74. What the hell.

It is nice. It's nice. And it's so beneficial, too. Yeah, it is. I mean, the stuff is legit. There's nothing. It took me a while to get used to smoking it again because I had asthma back when I was smoking it when I was in college, right? So it just didn't, and it became, it was really an illegal thing back then too,

which I was fairly conscious of. All my friends did it and all that. It didn't bother me. It just wasn't my thing. But it's taken me a while to practice it back, but I like the buzz. It's nice. And the edibles absolutely work. I can vouch for that.

Oh, yeah. And the no hangover. Yeah, no hangover. And also, as far as being for people that have pain, it works. Yeah. It ain't been gay. It's much better. Oh, yeah.

It's a lot better. The reduction of inflammation from CBD is so good. I know so many people that have arthritis and all sorts of issues. They start taking CBD. It all goes away. Yep. Absolutely. You had asthma?

When I was a kid, yeah. Wow. It just like went away? Yeah, I grew it. Yeah, which is not unusual. Oh, okay. So I just couldn't smoke. I had nothing.

I liked it, but I've always liked booze. I don't know what it is about me. Because it's fun. Yeah. Why do we like booze? Yeah. Because it's fun. Why is the plane loaded full of milk, ultra, and vodka right now?

Yeah, there's nothing quite like drinking. No, it's the best. We need to go out one night. Yeah, we do. Yeah. 100%. What are you in town for? I'm a lot of fun.

I could stay. One more day. You come visit me to Tampa. Yeah, I got to come to Tampa. Yeah, you got to come visit me, please. Can we change numbers? Can we change numbers so I can call you? 100%.

I have Dana's number. Yeah, 100%. And I have Vincent's. Now I have Joe Rogan's. All right. Let's do it. 100%. I want to FaceTime Ric Flair.

Hell yeah. Awesome.. Let's do it. 100%. I want to FaceTime Ric Flair. Hell yeah. Awesome. Well, listen, brother, thank you very much for being here. Thank you. It's a real honor to meet you, and it's just fucking cool. Thank you. It's very cool for me. Trust me.

Thank you. I'm very honored. Big fan. And Tony, all week, this guy's been chomping at the bit. Tony. He's so excited to be here. Thank you. That's literally one of the greatest pro wrestling fans in the history of the world,

right there. Thank you. He knows it all. Thank you. He almost worked for the WWE. Awesome. He was going to write for them, but he just didn't want to live in Connecticut. And I wanted to keep doing stand-up comedy.

Yeah. And thank God it ended up that way. You know who's pretty good? That Dolph. Yeah. Dolph Ziggler's pretty good at it. Yeah. No, I'm friends with Dolph.

Oh, yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah. What a great guy. Cleveland, Ohio. He's done my podcast. He's a tough kid, too. Yeah, he's tough. All-American, Iph. Yeah. Dolph Ziegler's pretty good at it. Yeah. No, I'm friends with Dolph. Oh, yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah. What a great guy. Cleveland, Ohio. He's done my podcast. He's a tough kid, too. Yeah, he's- All-American at Kansas City.

You got to get him on Kill Tony. Yeah, you have to hang out in Austin next time. Let's do it. A little less jet flying and a little more- Hotel staying. Yeah, exactly. Fine dining. Hotel staying, steak eating.

Champagne drinking. Yeah. Okay, you got it. I'll come in. Let's do it. We'll take her to come out, too. Whoever you want, man. He's here. I know. Yeah. Okay, you got it. I'll come in. Let's do it. We'll take her to come out, too. Whoever you want, man. He's here.

I know. Yeah. He can drink a Jack. Oh, yeah. Oh, we had the other day. Mark, oh, you're lucky I'm not calling you, brother. He's home. You can hear me.

I lost two Rolexes with him drinking Jack Daniels. How'd you lose two Rolexes? Well, one I heard I threw into a bowl of spaghetti and told some chick that I had 13 of them at home. I did hear of them at home. I did hear about this. Yeah, I wake up with two girls in bed, right? And I go, look around, I'm watching my wall, right? I'm in Baltimore.

And I was with Taker and Kurt Henning and Horace Grant, the one that played for Washington. Harvey. Harvey Grant. the one that played for Washington, Harvey, Harvey Grant, for the Capitals, or not Capitals, but the basketball team. The Bullets then, maybe the Wizards. Yeah. And I guess I got hammered.

I went down to Sabatino's and I woke up with the two girls and no Rolex. So that's my joke with Mark. I said, every time I take off my Rolex, I just put it in my pocket. But we've had so much fun together. We've traveled in Japan together and Europe. He's just a great guy, man. We had a great podcast with him. The Undertaker was awesome.

He's the best. Yeah. If we could all four of us get together, I think that would be a good match. Let's do that. He's the best. Yeah. If we could all, four of us get together, I think that would be a good match. Let's do that. Let's do it. 100%.

Michael, hope you hear this tomorrow, brother. I'm coming back to Austin. Next time we'll do this, we'll schedule Kill Tony. I'll come on with him as a guest.

We'll all go out to dinner. Let's have some fun. Love that. Here in Austin? Yeah. Hell yeah. Yeah. Hell yeah.

Leave the wives at home. Absolutely. Woo! Woo! Woo! Woo! All right, so for anybody who wants to buy your stuff, it's available at all legal hemp shops. Woo Choose.

Ric Flair approved. You're the fucking man. Thank you, brother. Thank you. I really appreciate you being here. I'm honored. Thank you. I'm honored.

Thank you. Thank you, Tony. Thank you. All right. Bye, everybody.