‘I’m not upset with WWE.’ So, why did 16-time wrestling champion Ric Flair leave?
Ric Flair, who made his fame in Charlotte, is out at Worldwide Wrestling Entertainment, the professional wrestling league he called home for decades.
“We have come to terms on the release of Ric Flair as of today,” the league, run by Vince McMahon posted on Twitter in a terse one-sentence statement Tuesday morning.
In social media posts Tuesday, the 72-year-old Flair said he wanted to “make it really clear with everyone that I’m not upset with WWE at all. They solely are responsible for putting me in the position of life that I’m in right now, where I’m seen in the brightest light ever.
“We have a different vision for my future,” Flair said. “I wish them nothing but continued success! Thank you for everything! Nothing but respect!”
Citing unnamed sources, Wrestling Inc., a pro wrestling news website, first reported the separation on Monday.
“Flair requested the release and it was granted, effective today,” according to the site.
Flair was a relatively unknown wrestler in Minnesota the day he said he arrived in Charlotte “with $150 in my pocket” in 1974.
Charlotte was a professional wrestling epicenter, home to Jim Crockett’s National Wrestling Alliance, then the second-largest wrestling operation in the U.S. Flair, “the Nature Boy,” made his debut in the rival WWE in 1991.
Flair eventually became a 16-time world champion, according to the WWE, which twice inducted him into its Hall of Fame.
He last competed in a ring in 2011 but continued to appear in WWE programming, Sports Illustrated reported.
Flair’s daughter, Providence High School graduate Charlotte Flair, also competes in the WWE, where she has gained celebrity status with 4.4 million Instagram followers.
One of his sons, Reid, died at 25 of an accidental drug overdose in 2013. Reid and his brother, David, also were pro wrestlers. David eventually left the ring for other jobs.
Near-death experience
The former longtime Charlottean nearly died in 2017 at age 68, when he was hospitalized and put into a medically induced coma. Flair lives in the Gwinnett County town of Lawrenceville.
In 2019, Flair said doctors saved his life again, but didn’t say what landed him in an Atlanta hospital again.
“Until you have laid in that hospital bed in a coma for 12 days, and actually talked to God and begged for His mercy, and begged Him to forgive you because you don’t know where you’re going, you don’t know if you’re ever going to wake up, you have no idea what goes through your mind,” Flair said in a video published on YouTube.
On YouTube that year, Flair said he wouldn’t slow down because of his latest health procedure.
“I’m going to move forward,” he said. “I’ve got autographs to sign, commercials to make, friends to have cold beers and I mean two beers if it’s stone cold.”
Flair vowed never to get old. “I’ve got a wife who wants a 35-year-old man every day of her life. She needs that 35-year-old. I don’t care how doctors tell me to act.
“I’m paying you to make me better so I can be me ... I’m up. I’m well. I’m feeling great.
This story was originally published August 3, 2021 at 11:42 AM.