Ric Flair’s charismatic promos and extravagant entrances set him apart from his peers at the height of his career, and all the news of The Nature Boy’s crazy antics outside of the ring only served to further emphasize his larger-than-life image. Flair claims that the line between his in-ring persona and his real persona is almost non-existent.
“It was all really me,” Flair admitted in an interview with Roman Scharf.Dual Time Podcast:He then explained that being in character and living it makes you much more relatable to the audience because they can see through the craft.
“If you’re talking about driving a Rolls-Royce, you better have one. I have had. If you talk about flying a plane and owning a plane, I’ve flown private planes all my life and owned a plane,” Flair claimed, adding that his private plane crashed and killed two others and the pilot crashed and almost killed him. The veteran then claimed to have bought 320 alligator shoes from Bruce Teilhaber of Friedman Shoes since 1981, which he says is a testament to how seriously he takes his image.
Flair then said that no one will know how much money you make until you tell them, so wearing expensive clothes sends the message that you really have money.
“It wasn’t always cost-effective, but I was,” he added, explaining that it was easy to be a “Nature Boy” because he always wanted a vibrant lifestyle.
Ric Flair on his drinking habit. “I’m famous for buying drinks.”
Ric Flair’s reputation for wild partying is also another aspect of his character, and even at his current age, unfortunately, he still has a tendency when someone catches him drunk at a bar. Flair also pulled his wrestling peers for exceeding their drinking limits. like Shawn Michaels, who he convinced to get drunk with him after “HBK” started turning his life around.
“I’m famous for buying drinks,” he recalls. “I was making more money than the guys I was hanging out with, and I felt like the least I could do was pay the tab for them to go out with me. Does that make sense?’ Flair claimed that he thought it would be unfair for his wrestling buddies to spend money they didn’t have, especially when they would have to go back and explain it to their wives.
Fleur, on the other hand, never believed he owed any of his women an explanation for his antics and boldly declared that he would simply tell them what he was up to. “If they didn’t like it, they left,” he admitted. “Four divorces followed… One of them actually had the nerve to ask me out once what I had in common with John Cena because he was 30 years younger than me. I said: “You know what? Let me think about it and I’ll get back to you tomorrow.”
If you use any quotes from this article, please credit Roman Scharf’s Dual Time Podcast and credit ah/t Wrestling Inc. for the transcription.