Second Nature Read online

  As years went by, admiration from my peers and adulation from fans continued to soar. But outside the ring, I left a trail of collateral damage behind, including four marriages that ended in divorce.

  Riding to my hotel in Dallas, I don’t think of my greatest opponents—legends like Wahoo McDaniel, Blackjack Mulligan, Harley Race, Ricky Steamboat, Dusty Rhodes, Barry Windham, and Sting—or riding high with groups the Four Horsemen and Evolution. I think of my children: Megan, David, Ashley, and Reid.

  I don’t know if I’ll be known as the greatest wrestler of all time. What I do know is that I won’t go down in history as the greatest father—not because I didn’t care or didn’t try—because for so long I was so focused on myself.

  Earlier in my career, Megan and David only saw me seven to ten days a year. That was tough. I missed out on so much, and I know it hurt them. It hurt me too. I wrestled seven days a week—twice on Saturday and twice on Sunday—in an industry without an off-season. The business was different back then. If you didn’t work, you didn’t get paid. I was also a different person. I was so consumed with being the “Nature Boy” that nothing else mattered.

  In some ways, it must’ve been hard for Megan and David when they saw Ashley and Reid spend more time with me years later. I didn’t love them more. I just wasn’t on the road as much. A benefit to working in WCW was that the travel schedule was much lighter than it was in the ’70s, ’80s, and early ’90s. At times my professional and personal decisions made things painful for them. I’m so proud of the people Megan and David have become and the beautiful families they have today.

  Now, as I’m thinking of my daughter Ashley, I see the stunning image of her draped across the façade of AT&T Stadium in Dallas. I’m brought to tears. Professionally, she’s known around the world as Charlotte. This Sunday at WrestleMania, she’ll be defending the WWE Divas Championship in one of the most anticipated matches on the card. She and I have had our share of ups and downs, but her accomplishments continue to amaze me.

  To be back representing WWE by her side has been the greatest time of my life. I know of only a select few parents and children in sports or entertainment who have had the opportunity to perform together in such a prominent way, like we’ve had. I’m filled with pride when I think of everything Ashley has achieved. She’s been in the sports-entertainment industry just four years, and as an athlete in the ring, she’s already better than I ever was.

  There are a lot of questions surrounding the outcome of her match on Sunday. I know she can handle any situation, but as a parent, you always worry about your child. I just want her to trust me when I say everything will work out for the best no matter what creative decision is made. Yes, this business is entertainment, and the Superstars collaborate to create an incredible show. When you walk through that curtain, the performance is more real than you can ever imagine. Everyone wants to be a champion.

  Every day I think about my son Reid, who tragically passed away at twenty-five years old. The heartbreak feels like it was yesterday. The grief that overwhelms a parent who has to bury his or her child is unimaginable. It will cling to me, his mother, and his siblings for the rest of our lives. Thanks to the love and support of so many, we’ve been able to carry on, but we will never be the same.

  In our own way, we all tried to help him. I take a great deal of responsibility for his death. During Reid’s troubled times, I was not in a good place emotionally and made some poor decisions. I knew how much he looked up to me, but I didn’t always lead by example. We were best friends, and I feel like I failed him. I’d give anything to hold my son in my arms again and tell him how much I love him, how much we all love him.

  During the last few years, I’ve realized that life doesn’t stop because you’re no longer in the main event or the world champion. You have to make adjustments. I’m still making adjustments. But that’s the gift of redemption. If you’re willing, it’s never too late to make things right, to turn things around, and that’s one of the reasons I wanted to write this book.

  For too long, being the World Heavyweight Champion was all that mattered to me. Now, I see what’s really important in life: to be the best I’ve ever been as a person and a father. That’s all that matters to me.

  1

  HISTORY, FATE, AND DESTINY

  I’ll never retire …

  November 2007

  Almost six years to the day, I stood backstage at Monday Night Raw in Charlotte, North Carolina. I waited for my cue at Gorilla—the position that’s right before you walk through the curtain, named after Gorilla Monsoon. During an interview segment, to the “surprise” of Vince McMahon and Kurt Angle, and with my family in the crowd, I entered the arena. I was back in WWE.

  On this night, after a three-month hiatus, I returned to Raw to give an interview about the future of my career. When you’re on television every week, being away for three months is a long time. I shared with the audience what I had been doing: I considered entering politics in my home state of North Carolina; I opened my own company; and I pursued investment opportunities. All those things were true. I didn’t just say them for the camera’s benefit.

  As my children Megan, David, and Ashley, and my wife, Tiffany, sat at ringside, there was one time during that interview where my emotions almost got the best of me. When I said, “My wrestling career can’t go on forever,” that thought was almost too much to bear. But my bravado returned, and I exclaimed, “I have to announce to you … that I will never retire! I will only retire when I’m dead in this ring—over my dead body. I’ve got too much juice left. I’m still the Nature Boy.”

  By the way the crowd responded, it sounded like I’d made the right decision.

  What I was really saying was, in my mind and in my heart, I wasn’t ready to say goodbye to the business that represents the only thing I ever wanted to do with my life. As the hometown Charlotte crowd roared, Vince McMahon did what I did to him six years earlier—he made a perfectly timed entrance.

  In the middle of the crowds’ always-colorful chants describing their feeling toward the Mr. McMahon character, Vince informed me, and the world, that the next time I lost a match, my career would be over. When the sound of boos dissipated and Vince was leaving the ring, another surprise was waiting for me: WWE Champion Randy Orton.

  Randy is a third-generation Superstar. I have great history working with Randy’s family: his grandfather was the legendary “Big O,” and his dad, the great “Cowboy” Bob Orton. If you would’ve told me in 1983 when I was working with Bobby in Jim Crockett Promotions as part of the National Wrestling Alliance (NWA) that almost twenty-five years later I’d be a WWE Superstar, and Bob’s son would be in a ring as WWE Champion with me and Vince McMahon, I would’ve said, “Are you kidding me?”

  Several years earlier, Randy and I were members of the group Evolution. He began his part of the segment by thanking me: for being a mentor to him early in his career, for being there for him when he had personal problems, and for my contributions to sports entertainment. As the perfect villain, Randy ended by saying, “I want to thank you in advance, Ric Flair. I want to thank you for the honor. I want to thank you for the pleasure, tonight, of ending your career.”

  It was one of the aspects of our business that’s often taken for granted. In those few minutes on live television, my new story line was established, the parameters were set, and I was about to face an incredible opponent in Randy.

  Over the course of my career, there were few story lines that were difficult for me and even fewer where I didn’t have full command of my emotions. For this story, the tone of my voice, my facial expressions, and my feelings were the easiest they’ve ever been to channel for one reason: they were real. No one—not Tiffany, my children, my friends, or Vince McMahon—knew just how real.

  What many people also didn’t know was that I got a call from Vince that summer. He told me that there was a retirement story line concept we were going with where the next match I’d lose would forc
e me to retire from in-ring competition. At first, I thought this was like other story lines I had been in where I’d lose a match, “retire,” and then it would be announced to the audience that—thanks to a loophole in a contract, or executive decision by a fictitious board of directors, or something happening to someone the audience knew I was close to—I’d be “reinstated.” Not on a full-time basis but semiregularly as a special attraction.

  As Vince went into further detail, I realized that there would be no loophole and no “emergency meeting.” Vince told me, “We’re going to put you in the Hall of Fame. The next day, you’ll work with someone at WrestleMania, and after that we’re going to say goodbye.” He also said that after I had some time off, I’d return to work for the company as an ambassador. I’d make special appearances to support the different business units across the company: live events, television partnerships, consumer products, community outreach, and the occasional cameo on WWE programming. Everything Vince said made sense and, in the context of our conversation, sounded good. We’d talk about a new contract when my performer agreement was coming up. Everyone, including me, knew that it was time to think about winding down my in-ring career. Accepting it was another matter.

  After thirty-five years of walking down that aisle, I thought, I survived a plane crash that broke my back; I was struck by lightning; and I spent years performing seven days a week—twice on Saturday and twice on Sunday—in an industry that does not have an off-season. I looked back on the countless number of performers who were forced to retire due to injury, because they couldn’t take the rigors of the business anymore, or because they just lost their connection with the audience. I was thankful none of those circumstances applied to me—until then. In that moment, I realized, This is it. My career’s ending … over the phone. I wasn’t sure which scenario was worse.

  After my segment on Raw with Vince and Randy, I went into the locker room and traded my $10,000 suit for my $10,000 robe. I don’t know if that was what the night signified or that I was in the main event in Charlotte, but when I saw Nature Boy stitched on the back of my robe, I thought of Olivia Walker. Olivia was the wife of the famous Mr. Wrestling II and a master seamstress. She made custom robes and jackets for everyone from George Jones and Porter Wagoner to Liberace. Everything Olivia created was stunning: hand-stitched sequin patterns with a menagerie of precious gems intertwined with elaborate designs. One of my favorite robes she made had real peacock feathers. Naturally, that was the one we ended up shredding on TV during my story line with Blackjack Mulligan in the ’70s. Olivia said to me, “Ric, why would you pick that one? It took me a year to make. I’m not making you another robe like that.” At one point, I had thirty-five robes.

  Olivia’s robes inspired my entrance: raising my arms and slowly turning in a complete circle so everyone could see the majesty of her work—and, of course, notice me. When she measured me for the first time, she took extra measurements, because she knew how certain material and fabrics would fit and how they’d look when I walked. Olivia was an incredible artist and a wonderful person. That night, I walked into the ring wearing one of my favorite robes from the ’80s. I brought it with me to WWE in 1991.

  For years, I’ve said that Randy Orton is one of the top two or three performers in our industry. Considering that I was fifty-nine years old and where I was in my career, I defeated Randy in a way that made sense. I had a little help from my friend Chris Jericho—who distracted the referee and Randy. Given my on-air reputation as the Dirtiest Player in the Game, after a low blow and yank of the trunks for leverage, the referee counted one, two, three, and we were off and running. The crowd loved it. It looked great on television and was a tremendous way to launch our story line. I appreciated that Randy set things off in such a high-profile fashion.

  As my physical skills diminished with age, I could still do everything I did in the ring, just not quite as well. I learned how to become more entertaining as a performer, to strengthen other aspects of my performance and appear to do more while physically doing less.

  Over the next four months, I did something that I always prided myself on: I worked with opponents of all different shapes, sizes, and skill sets, whether it was the four-hundred-pound US Olympic powerlifter and World’s Strongest Man Mark Henry, the classic English grappler William Regal, the wild Samoan bulldozer Umaga, brash rising Superstars like Mr. Kennedy and MVP, or the man I believe is the best in the business when he’s performing in the ring, Triple H.

  Paul “Triple H” Levesque was one of the first people who befriended me when I returned to WWE in 2001. It was Paul’s idea to form the group Evolution—a group that featured Paul, Randy, Dave Bautista (better known as Batista), and me. The group paid tribute to the Four Horsemen. Its main goal was to create two new stars for the future: Randy and Dave. During our travels, we formed a special bond. Even after Evolution imploded in classic wrestling fashion, I remained Paul’s adviser on television until in greater fashion, his character, nicknamed the Cerebral Assassin, launched a vicious assault against me, thus ending our partnership on WWE programming. Of course, our characters came back together at different times on television.

  When I look at Paul in the ring, I see myself twenty years earlier. I wish I could’ve worked with him when I was in my prime. From Charlotte to Norfolk to Chicago to Los Angeles, Honolulu, Tokyo, Moscow, and Germany, we would’ve torn the house down every night.

  It was an incredible experience to close out the year performing with Paul in Greensboro, North Carolina, in the same building where I won the NWA World Championship from Harley Race at Starrcade ’83. It was so much fun to work with him. Paul has such a deep admiration for me and the history of our business. His love of our craft allowed us to do things in the ring—like certain moves at specific times—that are often not used today. To give our match an added layer of suspense, the Mr. McMahon character stipulated that if Paul’s character lost to me, he’d be out of the Royal Rumble match.1

  In the ebb and flow of a compelling performance, the question remained: “How will this end?” That night, my career lived on after William Regal attacked me with brass knuckles, getting Triple H disqualified. The way the Raw broadcast ended, with the two of us embracing in the ring, symbolized more than our television personas showing admiration for one another. Since I came back to WWE, Paul has been one of my biggest advocates and closest friends. He was the best man at my wedding when I married Tiffany in 2006. My family, especially my sons, couldn’t love him more.

  Some of my critics have said that I have the same match and do the same moves. Based on my opponent and the specific story line and match, I always made sure to add nuances to keep it interesting. But I still made sure I performed my trademark offensive maneuvers and some of my classic moves, like the flip over the turnbuckle, which I learned from Ray Stevens, or when my opponent slammed me off the top rope, which I borrowed from Harley Race. Good Lord, Vince always hated when I performed that one.

  I think of something Joe DiMaggio once said—he played his hardest every game because there might be someone in the stands seeing him play for the first time. I felt that way about wrestlers and their trademark moves in a match as long as everything made sense, especially when you’re a top star with a championship. When I was a kid and went to AWA shows, I was so disappointed if I didn’t see Verne Gagne’s sleeper hold, the Crusher’s bolo punch, Baron von Raschke’s claw, or Dick the Bruiser’s knee drop from the top rope. It’s part of what the fans pay to see, similar to the Rolling Stones and the Who, who still play their hits from the ’60s and ’70s at concerts today.

  We were doing this story line over a four-month period on live television. For the program to maintain the level of excitement that it needed to be successful, each match had to have a different feel and create a special level of anticipation. In the age of the digital revolution and the internet, with people leaking spoilers about what’s going to happen on a show before it occurs, well, it’s even more challenging.<
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  This concept was a superb combination of two classic sports-entertainment story lines: one, the career-threatening match—when you lose the match, your career is over; and two, the anticipation that comes from a “bounty.” While no one in our story put up $50,000 to send me into retirement, the drama of what was going to happen to me week to week was similar. Who was my opponent going to be? Was someone going to look to bring me down so he could say he retired Ric Flair? Or would someone who was considered my friend be put in an unenviable position of having to face me? What consequences would a Superstar face from the ruthless Mr. McMahon character for losing the match? Everything revolved around the premise of “Will Ric Flair’s career live to see another day?”

  There was a finality and an emotion that fans could easily invest in—either I’d win and survive another week, or that night would be the last time the world saw Ric Flair as a WWE Superstar.

  I found it fitting that an exciting event like the Royal Rumble was the first pay-per-view of the new year that put WWE as a company, and the audience, on the road to WrestleMania.

  The Royal Rumble is a battle royal with thirty participants. Depending on the stipulation, every ninety seconds or two minutes, a new Superstar enters the match. Once you’re thrown over the top rope and your feet touch the floor, you’re eliminated. Pat Patterson created the concept in the ’80s when Vince McMahon and NBC executive Dick Ebersol were brainstorming ideas for a TV special. The show was so well received that it became a pay-per-view event.

  My first Royal Rumble match was in 1992. Some say that was the greatest one because of the array of talent: Hulk Hogan, Randy Savage, Undertaker, Roddy Piper, Bret Hart, Shawn Michaels, Sgt. Slaughter, Jimmy Snuka, Ted DiBiase, Kerry Von Erich, Jake Roberts, the British Bulldog. It was a who’s who. I was proud to be a part of it.