Ric Flair

00:03The Joe Rogan Experience Shrink 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. The diamonds and everything? Look at Tony. He's flabbergasted. He's the man. He's literally the man. You have some licensing on that or something, right? I did, but the WWE borrowed it 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, like, beyond. So if he seems a little awestruck right now, that's what's going on. He's very polite. Thank you.

01:10I 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? 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 it something you cultivated for pro wrestling like No, I love pro wrestling as a kid. I watched all the time into my dad would take me to a match on My birthday or something like that right and then I was going to play football at the University of Minnesota and academically and eligible after a semester. Stayed in the fraternity house for two years. Told my parents I was still in school.

02:10And then Ken Patera came to town, and I got a chance to break in with Vern. I just kind of grew up on Joe Namath. Going back to where I got that, when I saw Joe Namath in Miami in the men's coat with the chick in the lounge chair, I said, that's me. And then he had slept with 300 women at 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 them. Let's hear this. Let's hear this, Sergio. Diamond ring one. Woo! Kiss Dillon. Woo! Wheelie Dillon. Woo! Limousine ride. Woo! Jeff Flyer. Son of a gun. Woo! And I'm having a hard time holding these hot gators down. And a red flag.

03:18He'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. I did 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 Whoa, thank God. It's amazing. I mean, that's an amazing thing. You like literally the only human being that's connected to a sound Yeah, you go Ric Flair and they go How did that was that something that just came out one day one promo? I'm telling you right we used to drive you know, 3,000, 3,500 miles a week, sometimes four. I mean, at night you're just listening to music and drinking beer and throwing cans at those signs, 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, you know, the thing.

04:11And 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. Yeah. The killer. Wrecking the serrations, the good balls of fire. Oh, my God. Wow. 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 Elvis 14? Yes, I believe she was 14. Oh, my God. Isn't that the case, Jamie? I think when he met her, she was 14. Yeah. Which is wild. On the base, right? Yeah.

05:13Yeah, Jerry Lee Lewis one time little Richard had to follow him and he lit the fucking piano on in Chicago And he said follow that motherfucker. Yeah, yeah Wait, Jerry Lee was before yes. Yeah, little Richard had to follow him And so it they were in Chicago and so he lit the pan on fire after all the stuff and then Walk 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 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 at it. Oh, wow. 707. Yeah. It's probably a piece of shit.

06:10but 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 hanger somewhere? That's what 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 I went for? Wow. That fucked up. Damn, look at that. It's got like 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 What is that gentleman's name Austin the played 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 Yeah, Austin Butler. He's fucking really good. Yeah, he is really good. That was a good movie

07:03I'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. 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 the money left by never letting him go overseas. He was scared. He wanted to control Elvis. And then the gambling. Mm-hmm. What a great story, though. Yeah. Yeah. Fuck, man. The thing about a guy like Elvis and you could speak to this too because when you get that famous Like when you're that young and you get that famous like you hold the whole world is kind of crazy Yeah, how does a guy like that? There was no Elvis is before Elvis no, right? I mean, I think he was like before Michael Jackson

07:55He was like the first person like that was just like this mega superstar The only guy I've ever seen like it was that I've witnessed in in music that's close to him was Bon Jovi with the women. I actually went to a Bon Jovi concert with one of my wives. I've had four. And I'm sitting there watching this, and there's 18,000 people in the arena, 17,000 of them are women. I never realized that the guy had that kind of following. Oh, Bon Jovi? He was beautiful. Yeah, I know him. What's the bass guitar player's name? Richie Samboro? Yeah, yeah. Yeah, me and the chicks were throwing their top on me. 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, like, warm up the crowd. So I had to do, like, stand-up and warm up the crowd and then bring up Bon Jovi. And we had to, like, bring girls to the center.

08:55And when those guys were on stage and those guys were singing, these girls were so close. They were so close to, like, Bon Jovi. Because it was a very small venue. Like you know a couple hundred people they were like right there Yeah, the look in their face is like they're being hypnotized like they can't believe he's real like he's right there It's like a thing with it with Elvis and around Yeah, yeah Yes, yes. God damn. That was great in the movie to watch that now Yeah, 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 you're having so much fucking fun and it made it You know, look at this they're right around him. I know some volume on this And this was his big comeback show.

09:55And 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, man. Wait a minute. Wait a minute. I forgot the lyrics. I forgot the lyrics. Wait a minute. Wait a minute. I forgot the lyrics. This is live. This is awesome. Oh, man. What a motherfucker he was. Too much. 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, I love it. Oh, man. Roots of Fight has some dope Elvis shit. The Elvis karate days are 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.

11:14And 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 is a gun, man. Did he just like Elvis? I would imagine, yeah. Oh, yeah. Well, he was a jump old dude. Oh, yeah, right there. Look at that. Look at that. Yeah. Wow. He fought Antonio Inoki, that guy to the left. Remember that? Yeah, I did too. Did you really? Oh, that's right. That was in North Korea. Inoki was a fascinating character. What an interesting thing he did too when he fought Ali. Like he, Ali let him. Kicking him legs down. 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.

12:12Because 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 a no keys like kicking his legs So this is the third round See mostly just butt scooted and tried to get Ali to come to him

13:04But he fucked his legs up where Ali was having a real problem 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 blocks 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. When you had a match with him, where did you have your match with him? North Korea. In North Korea? In Pyongyang. In North Korea. Wow. Bad news. What was that like? I got a passport, it's 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.

13:56They put me in one hotel, all in another, and the other talent that came along in another. And I knew where it was. I was in trouble. The 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 of the equivalent I think he told me that and he gave me it would take a hundred years to buy one of these I wanted to say brother you can have this right now just get me on a plane home I mean it was that bad How did they talk you into doing that? 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 automatically went yes, and then

14:52That was that we never even talked I'd never worked with an Oki before so I just he just trusted me Well, that's cool. You guys that kind of respect that you could do that because you didn't speak Japanese 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. Everybody I called that I knew in politics said, don't go. It's a volatile situation. It still is. And they hate the Americans. They hate the Americans. They hate the Americans and they hate the Japanese. Why did they want you over there? Why did they send you a mask there? It was like 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 the tension between Japan and Korea. I don't know.

15:51North Korea, I don't know. But they clearly hate the Japanese and the Americans. It's so weird that they had a Japanese and American over there. I wish you could pull up that card show. They have to hold the car 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 And they're mandatory attendance It wasn't like they bought tickets And it shows a rocket Flying right over Japan And landed in America Look at this It's unbelievable Watch this They have that Oh, they're all synchronized. Yeah, it was the most unbelievable thing I've ever seen in my life. Wow. That they showed 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.

17:00Say he comes to me, he said they wanted me to say that, make a speech before they give him my passport. Then I thought North Korea could defeat USA hands down. And so I said, I can't do that. And Chinoa said, well, you know, I don't know if I'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, Ollie 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. and I was so glad to be back. Wow. How long were you over there for?

18:03We 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 are at the Marigold Hall, which is their version of the Capitol. Mm-hmm. And the guy is talking, there's an interpreter, and he goes, talking about how they could destroy America and whatever. and Ali Tassman, like, keep in mind he hasn't said a word on the trip yet. He goes, no wonder we ate these sum of bitches. I go, I go. Please don't start talking now. Just tell me later when we're alone. Don't bring that up. Yeah, nice job. Let's eat this shit and get out of here. What kind of food do they serve you? Oh, the 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 know, you don't have any, you have no control over your destination. Yeah.

19:03I don't even ride in somebody else's car when I have to go somewhere. I like to have my own, you know, my own limo, my own car, you know, 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. 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 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. What do they play, basketball together or something? Yeah. Video games. I'm sure he pays them to let him beat them 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. Yeah.

19:58Going over there all the time? Yeah. Now 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 Lecter. 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 was everybody was scared from except Dennis Rodman Yeah, because Dennis Rodman was like motherfucker. I'll spit in your mouth and accelerate your symptoms The Dennis and the 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 was 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.

21:02So I'm partying a little bit too much. Whatever. Yeah. They actually, you know, that thing, the last dance, right, was the show with Jordan last year or two years ago. They're actually doing a takeover the two days they took off to go get Dennis out of Vegas. They're making a sequel. 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 show i was like in the middle of the night yeah and it was the funniest thing i've ever seen it's an animated like cartoon they just had four women in the room for two days and the chicago bulls the chicago bulls were like in the playoffs it 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

21:49trouble in the weeds the whole the story is so off the charts 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 and you know 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 you 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. 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.

22:45Like 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. Stay a little longer. Yeah. and the fact that you actually lived that life i did a lot of those a lot every every other wrestler was playing at a direction the undertaker wasn't really burying bodies rowdy rowdy piper wasn't scottish playing bagpipes all these legends somehow you combined your actual all of the worlds you and the only difference is sometimes you would wrestle and still be that same guy. Yeah. I lived the life. I have to admit, it wasn't always

23:44cost effective, but I lived my gimmick. 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. Vern Gagne. yeah wow and what's crazy bruiser yeah i mean but you started wrestling after the plane crash right no plane crash was in 75 oh wow so tell us about the plane crash um we were going from um charlotte to wilmington north carolina for outdoor show 10 000 legion stadium or that's where michael's from um that's the first time that michael jordan not 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.

24:52So 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. and he should have landed in Raleigh and refilled, but he's looking and say 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 had that dry sense of humor. Well, we're flying along. All of a sudden, the red engine goes, boop, boop, boop, boop, boop, boop. Maybe like six times over, like you see in the movies, and then bingo pinned, right? I went, shit. But he reaches down, he pulls up the reserve, natural reaction, there is no reserve gas. Left engine went, boom. And instead of a, we flew into a tree orchard, right? Normally a cartwheel is a small aircraft.

25:52We were going so fast we tore it down and landed a railroad embankment stuck at 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're, you... He died. 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 says, he goes, Joey, you know, I could talk all day. So they're putting this 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 with my shaving kit. There's a letter to a chick named Sheila. I said, tell Sheila I love her not to come see me. It's last I've seen the Sheila. Oh, boy.

26:57The guy showed up 10 years later at the match. You remember me? I'm the guy that 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 fractured the actual bones of the spine? Compression fracture, yeah. I used to be a 6'2". 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 how that goes, that was what we were going to do, right? They said you're never going to wrestle again. yeah that was in 75 would you say when was it was 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 the landing on my hip on my side yeah because of your back injury Yeah, just couldn't get myself to land flat.

27:56So the promoter I was wrestling said, if you don't take a backdrop, that's where you flip over a guy's shoulder and go up in here like six, seven feet. We're going to 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, I are 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 turbo, took it, boom. That was over. But I just couldn't get myself a 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 know, with you that's so rare.

28:45There'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, an hour was normal for you. I did 330 hours. 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 Bret Hart versus Shawn 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 you go Broadway. And none of the promoters, because I traveled around the world, none of the promoters wanted their top guy to get beat.

29:48The problem is that half the guys couldn't wrestle for an hour, so I'm wrestling myself. The last half hour, basically wrestling myself. Putting on a show. The worst part was down here with the Von Erichs. I'm sure you remember that story. Actually, the movie coming out, had to wrestle all those kids. They had a lot of issues with chemicals and just a nightmare. Greatest kids in the world, but to wrestle an hour with someone that's impaired is really rough. Was it it was it rough because they couldn't coordinate or coordinate yet? I don't mean physically rough, but just difficult They were just out there tell a story. Yeah, yeah Oh, right, right So when you would have a match like that that's an hour match We just kind of flowing figuring out did you have a like a preconceived ending to it or did you just just always just called it the ring because I have to hear the crowd mm-hmm

30:41I don't do that now, but I for me even even Even like right before I retired, I got to hear the crowd. Because, 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? So you got to, which takes a lifetime to learn, you got to 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 first long pass. You know what I mean? You got to 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 had to be in insane shape. I say kids, it's like riding a great homeboy sleeper driving to me. But it's, God, you've got to be in insane shape to do that for nine hours a week.

31:35The 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, there's no time off. That's what people don't appreciate. There's no time off. Except 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 impact those guys take. Yeah. 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 like where Edge was 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 I took two blades for every hour

32:29I'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 than I got 100. And how many times a week would you cut yourself? Every day. Oh, my God. That's so cool. Still Vince said no no, right right. Vince said no more cuts Great promo You were fucking jacked back then too. Yeah, I was pretty still pretty healthy How much what did you but 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? If I got in at 4 in the morning, I worked out at 5.

33:38Really? I never missed it. 500 free squats, push-ups. You know, mostly an all-around body workout once I was working full-time. So, been 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 had to, I just had it in my mind that I had to be at work. And then, because, you know, by the time 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, and I'm going to, got a couple hours, I have to relax, you go tan. So I just trained myself a little 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.

34:32That'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 a little longer. Take us through like when you go. 6th Street in Austin, Texas. Hey, little girl in the high school sweater. You should have met me in my day. I bet I should have. So we would have both gotten in real trouble. So like when you go back through the curtain after an hour-long match, what goes on then? Take us through a night of this normal routine. You're working out. Then you have the match. Then what? Well, you remember my career.

35:35I used to go like, because in the old days, we could do that. We can't do it now, of course, because it's unacceptable. I used to plug the Marriott. 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. I'd give that address of the Marriott. 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 them in Morse code. What are you doing tonight, baby? 300 of them. How did you pick who to hang out with? No, it was more than just me. I can't take it right now. Of course. I mean, all the guys came. I just won't throw their names out there. Right. But you were the ultimate wingman. I just couldn't go to bed. I just couldn't go to bed. Right.

36:43But also, with your personality and 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 gonna get gussied up to go meet Ric Flair yeah that girl's on a mission I hope so what was it like like touring back then like what was the what was the whole scene like because this is like well it's really not like the guy soap opera and 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. Right. Oh, this current climate? This current climate, no. I have a hard time doing it right now at 74. Lay low. You've got a gigantic diamond wedding ring on it. Is this a wedding ring or is this just a ring? It's a wedding ring. That must be the last one. This is it. That's a serious ring. That's Wendy Kidder. she's the one.

37:53Took a long time. She's the one. Here, Manny, you are the one. And by the way, Joe, she runs RicFlairShop.com. I had to give that a shout-out. All right. Now I'll really get it when I get home. RicFlairShop.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, like, where are you getting the energy from? I just always had a lot of self-energy. I mean, still very energetic, you know, because I 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 Intestate rupture from and I was from probably indulging too much, but

38:58Anyway, I just I've been lucky. It's really the gift of God. What operations have you had to have? I've had a 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 doesn't hurt. So as long as it doesn't hurt, I'm fine Then I cracked C5 in my neck and then the three compression fractures but my intestine completely ruptured in 2017 and I was septic septic which was 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 just been a month in a rehab center I couldn't walk. Holy shit. That was just 2017. So you were what, like 69 back then? Mm-hmm. Jesus. That's sketchy. Yeah. That's very scary. Very lucky. And that was just from indulgence?

39:59No, what happened was they tried to scare me and tell me that's what I'm drinking. I said, what it was, it's 2015. I'd had a pain in my stomach, and I put it off, put it off, and finally I said, well, when do I go to the doctor? And I just looked at it. So within 15 minutes they're operating on me, I had a ruptured appendix. So you know at 5 o'clock, 5 o'clock they go, you're either going upstairs or you're going home. So 5 o'clock they said, no, I'm going to keep you overnight. This was pretty bad. I said, not a chance. I got up, took the thing out of my arm, just no big deal. It was pulled out of me, got up, took five feet, I got a hernia. Laid me back down. So two days later they're operating on a hernia and they obstruct my bowel. Bowel obstruction is the bad one. From the operation? Yes. Then I'm at three operations in 11 days, but boy, the abdominal pain was brutal. I finally got home.

40:57Then you find out, because I've asked a million doctors before I started drinking again, I said, the drinking causes? No, what causes it? It's one in a million times. You're at one in a million. that 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, and the pain, I mean, I just dropped over. I don't remember anything. Wow. Wow. My wife took me to the hospital, and I woke up 31 days later. That's crazy. One of the things about pro wrestling is the amount of guys that are just in constant chronic pain that go to painkillers. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Thank God it's eased up, but, you know, guys wrestled 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?

41:51And that self-medication, you know the deal, one pill makes you feel good, I'll take two. That isn't what the doctor said. It's like steroids. If you can take one shot, okay, good. Well, I'll take two. You know what I mean? The word moderation does not exist. It's starting to exist now in our business, but it never did for a long time. Well, they're such wild people, right? Wild people indulging, and on top of that, they're smashed into each other all the time. Yeah, not so much anymore. The kids today are really refined. Yeah. They're much better. They're forced to be with social media and everything. But it's a whole tamer world now. Yeah. Yeah. Do you miss the wilder world, though? I do. Yeah. We are the last of the Mohicans in that regard. Yeah. I still got to go back once in a while, and I went this year and inducted Muta into Hall of Fame.

42:44And my daughter is arguably with Roman Reigns, the biggest star in the company, Charlotte. So the queen. No doubt. Monster. Unbelievable. I can't. Thank you for being here and verifying it. Yeah. She's an illegal person. I mean, she is a freak athlete. 5'11", 150. I'll show you a picture. I mean, and can do that. You saw Maria 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 did she show can you show her doing the corkscrew 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

43:48course a figure four leg lock and she pops it up into that cool bridge she calls it the figure eight yeah 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, chill. Oh my God! Just grief! Look at that. That is such a crazy thing to do to actually lay down. Isn't that unbelievable to be that tall? 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.

44:58but I could eat anything and drink anything. 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 rub off on the other guys you wrestled with? Some did, yeah. It's kind of like, you know, still people still talk about it because I just, that came from Vern. I just learned that if I was in better shape. But, you know, the saying that, 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? These guys coming out to the first half all roaring with 30 minutes left to go. And you've probably already done seven matches that week. Again, 92 Royal Rumble. You come out number one, 30 entrance. You know how the Royal Rumble. Number two. Oh, you were number two? Yeah, and I passed DBS.

45:55But it's the same thing. I pass DVS anyway, and I'll see you at the bar after the match. So he comes out number two, 30 entrance. It's basically kind of, 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 Rumble? I think I had wrestled Hulk the night before in Boston Garden. 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

46:59doctor tells you you're never going to wrestle exactly so it's wild so he enters he ends up 30 people come out every minute he ends up throwing all of them or 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. I'm becoming the undisputed champion of the World Wrestling Federation. Let me just say after Vue Distorting the belt, they're proclaiming the real world champion. I'm going to tell you all with a tear in my eye, this is the greatest moment in my life.

48:04When 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 on the wagon. Woo! Woo! We did it! Let's give a big one. Woo! You did it. 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 out The real world heavyweight champion We're not the kind of guys that say We told you so But we told you so This brings Tony right back to his childhood Look at him It's just a show He barely blinks the whole time He just did the craziest physical shit possible

49:07World Wrestling Federation history here tonight 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 Pipers and the SIDS. 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 in the back or Columbia to Raleigh, right? Do TV in Raleigh, wrestle Raleigh. What was the organization that you were working for back then? Jim Crocker promotions. And then you drove to, you brought the TV there, then you drove 250 miles to

50:15Norfolk, 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 in Savannah, Georgia or Charleston or Or go up to Greensboro, which 110 miles each way right and then Started all over the next week. Did you did you have a place you lived? Did you just basically? Oh, no, I don't know. I had a home. Well, I was there at night, but I mean I left it the same thing I kept in the morning at home and train it 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 like that. 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,

51:21St. 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 now, but I was so far down the car. In the earliest days? Yeah. Winnipeg would sell out. We'd fly to Denver, actually. Chicago would sell out. The amphitheater in Chicago would sell out. But I was so far down the car, I was making like, $100, $150 a night. Wow. We drove to Winnipeg. That was $500 each way. A thousand miles right there. And then get in the car at noon and drive to Springfield, Illinois, $380. And how many of these kind of small organizations existed back then that would just ship you all around the country?

52:14Well, there was the 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, yep. That was George Shempster Wrestling. Portland, and then 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... Because he got the cable TV, 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.

53:18then he made it the biggest craziest billion 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, Endeavor, who owns the UFC. Yeah. Yeah, they just bought the WWE. How do you think that'll work out? Well, they're smart. They know how to promote things. 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 would be a strange one for me

54:10if someone tries to tell Vince McMahon 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 like I think you give Dana full control there and then I don't think they overlap I think it's just owned by the same company, but the way they've treated the UFC Like they're very smart and yeah WME just said to Dana what you know what you're doing run this you know to run this yeah, I'm sure they'll do the same Oh, yes, I think so. I hope so Right who the fuck knows more about wrestling than that guy right nobody yeah, just did it can you give us some when he was getting involved in Scandals, and there was like girls who had paid off yeah, I just wanted to say Duh yeah like duh you got an 80 year old savage Yeah, like a fucking gladiator you think he fucks What do you think? What do you think?

55:03You think Vince McMahon is doing that just for fucking hee-hees and ha-ha's? Right. No, of course he's got some floozies on the side. He's my hero. Really? I just... Because it's an animal. I judge people by how they treat me and he has treated me like... Wow. Like he's never... I've never had anyone treat me with more respect ever in this business. Wow. That's awesome. He's a great guy. I got I don't care what he does before he's my hero There was really no one of that caliber. No, right? There's no one to put together an organization as big as the WWF No, no, he takes and he's what a vision. He's got balls bigger than fucking Dallas, Texas I mean, he's not He's not easy intimidated because you know when you're talking about your early days You go into these places and you know the local people know but it's kind of obscure nationwide for someone to take

55:52Wrestling 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 pretty wild the most watched cable television program for I think like 28 years or something like that The most watched we've been 30 anniversary. Yeah 30 years. It's a record every Monday On Monday tried to imitate that success with other organizations, but you really need a Vince McMahon yeah you do need a kingpin a long-term storyteller that sees things for 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

56:44something's happening it's like how you could have planned your uh 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 he's so so invested time-wise and mentally I mean I mean to me he's sharp as a tack he just he 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 Yeah, fix what he thought was right or wrong one of my thing and to me he's entitled to do that Sure, he owns it. I mean he built it. Yeah, you do it 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 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

57:42Yeah, and he was supposed to be there being a leader and We thought he had a heart attack, a stroke. We're sitting there watching it. He tore them both at the same time. That is so cool. See, you can find that. It's so crazy because the guy must be in fucking agony. And he's still, like, 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.

58:31And he doesn't have enough time to tell them 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 the 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 literally land at the same time never had right yeah 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, and no matter what angle you watch it from, it's a blatant,

59:18again, 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 like, oh, I'm going to fix this. When he's coming down that ramp throwing his jacket, there's nothing. He hasn't moved his legs in three hours. So that's how it happened. He'll sit there and he'll wear the announcers out because he's talking to them in their headset as they're calling. He was stupid, son-bitch. We don't say pro wrestling anymore. Sports entertainment. it. Yeah, non-stop messing with the commentators. Oh, it's unbelievable. It's entertainment, man. If you're sitting there watching,

60:14he's having a guy bring him a Morton steak. He's eating a steak with Morton's. 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 any more of that Kiss-stealing, wheel-and-dealing shit. Really? He told you, I don't want to hear any more of that Kiss-stealing, wheel-and-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 that 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.

61:23Yeah? With no training. Really? Oh, you have no idea. No idea. What did he look like? Show me a picture. Harley Race. Unbelievable. Jamie will show me the picture. Old school. Old school. No, listen, he's in a car wreck at 19. Killed 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 this metal rod I mean I've seen him and he headbutt 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 hell yeah look at him that looks like a man from another era yeah yeah he is he was you imagine being in the business at age 13 he was in the business at 13 yeah when did pro wrestling really start touring we've had some really tough guys over the years

62:42oh i'd imagine i don't mean um you know UFC as tough as they are there's still rules look at Brock Lesnar I'm talking about yeah real tough Brock Lesnar had very little MMA experience 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 has it in him. And Brock wouldn't pull your eye out. Pull your eye out? Yeah, this guy, Harley, 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 their eye. They were 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 who Haku is, right? Oh, yeah. Yeah. That's a scary guy. Haku barked his nose off in Toledo, Ohio. Yeah, like off. We've had some really tough guys in the business.

63:46So 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 he'd go, I have to do the smoking thing. 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. He said, I'm going to play pool. I go, Harley, please. Just sit on 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 who have 10 quarters. Quarter next guy, right?

64:44They 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 he could tell you some stuff there he is right there with... There's the Haku brother. We call him the human vegematic. Yeah. That's considered by many to be the scariest guy. Oh my God. 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 Haku gets a drinking jack, right, and he goes, so he goes and asks this girl to dance.

66:01He'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 and tap at the guy and start dancing with the girl again, right? So it's closing time. They call the jukebox and Google it. So this manager goes, last call on the post. Last call. So I ordered a bunch for the last call. And Haku is sitting in a drink. Here he is. You've seen him, right? And this guy, just a normal-sized guy, maybe 5'9", maybe 160 pounds. he goes up to Haku he goes he's 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 hit him with you know that other thing an artery here and 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. Help yourself.

67:17No, there were some really tough guys. But Haku, he's the kindest, sweetest guy in the world. Yeah, unless you say something wrong to him. Well, it's the Jack Daniels. Right. I know. And also back then, not only are these guys coming in hot after doing a sold-out arena, an extreme high. And then why would why do guys want to give a guy like what do you look at him who wants to give them shit right? Right, why would anybody here some dumb motherfuckers exactly and they're drunk and If they say anything even if the way what you do isn't even real back then Back then before they admitted that it was entertainment like back then they were I mean a whole different 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. Of course, they all got pissed off. Right. They'd start running their mouths and then they'd get their ass kicked. Yeah.

68:15But back then, it's not like now you can't do anything. Cops hardly 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? Oh, on a seven-day week, probably twice a week. Not me, but I've seen bar fights. 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 of course he gets his ass whipped. Yeah. Murdered. yeah what a fucking from guys that are in seven day a week one hour match shape working out for

69:10two hours every day no but with harley was that left hand um what did you say about wrestling you i'm talking to you he said what the cigarette is the guy looking at a cigarette right I said it was fake Wham I mean Broken jaw Broken 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 There's something about that Especially in Texas What The cowboys down here Think they're half tough You know Or that In the old days did Yeah. The real Cowboys, yeah. I'm sure. Well, they probably were tough compared to regular people. Yeah, they were, sure. But I meant, you know, rodeo riders and all that. Yeah. I'm taking nothing away from them. Right. They just weren't hardly race tough. There's something. Or Jack Mulligan tough or Haku rough. Right. Some of the guys were just dynamite. Yeah, I'm sure.

70:18There'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, 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? I found them on their own. Got them illegally.

71:12There's always been a way back. There's always been a way to get biased. I guess Viking or whatever I've ever 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-chews. Oh, God. Woo-chews. Oh, my goodness. Look at this. These are making me nervous just looking at them. Yeah. Oh, you got a drink? Yeah. How many milligrams is the drink? That's just an 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.

72:13Hey, 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? Pre-roll. It's nice. We need to spark one up with Ric Flair. Let's do it. High flying. Yeah, limousine riding. I'm only having one hair with you, man. Okay, brother. That stuff is strong. That's the infused. It smells strong. Yeah. 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 They gave it to me in LA It's all infused It's got the THC crystals You can keep that shit I'm not fucking with that Remember Brian Simpson was just sitting there Brian, you okay? He's like, what the fuck was in that reefer? Yeah, I gotta give Chad Bronstein

73:20and Aristotle and Adam Wilkes, a shout out, man, to the guys that put me in the business. When did you get involved in the cannabis business? Six months ago, Ric Flair Drip. Nice. Yeah. How's it taste? You good? It's good stuff, man. Cross this off my bucket list. Yeah. First time I got Howard Mike Tyson, I'm like, okay, I'm good. I got Howard Mike Tyson, I got Howard Snoop Dogg, Wiz Khalifa, Be Real, all the stoners. All the legit guys. All the OGs. We missed Wiz last night. We were at 420 in Missouri. Wiz is in fucking amazing shape. Ever see that guy's workout routine? Wiz 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. Dude, he looks like a UFC fighter. Like no bullshit. He's built like Jalen Turner. Oh, wow.

74:21Yeah, he works out at Unbroken, that big place in L.A. Look at him there. Snoop is in really good shape, too. Snoop's in very good shape. Snoop can spar, too. Snoop knows how to throw his hands. Look at Wiz Khalifa. See if he can get one of him working out with his shirt off, because he's fucking shredded. And he's been dedicated to this for years now. It's Jay Glazer's gym. Jay Glazer has this big gym called Unbreakable in LA. Wow. It's kind of like a private gym, but a lot of MMA fighters train there and some serious pro 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. 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. It just says mushroom blend, but it tastes fucking delicious.

75:32Take a swig of that. That's really good, man. 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? of these yeah see that is really very good right you've had one of these right so you got involved in the cannabis business but were you taking edibles before you got involved yeah but not like I do now and but you taking it specifically because of injuries and inflammation just you know just to get off the Xanax. No, injured? I'm fine. 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 him, and then he tried to just jump off, and they said, you're withdrawing. Yeah. You can feel it. If you miss one, you've been taking it as long as I have. I can really feel it. How long were you taking it for? Since 89. Holy shit.

76:39Yeah. Yeah, I had a real self-confidence issue. You know about that, I'm sure. You had a self-confidence issue? Huge, yeah. How is 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 um WCW this guy wanted me to cut my hair call myself Spartacus oh my god oh my god holy shit whose whose idea was that Jim heard oh my god to think that he almost killed the yeah well I did I did cut my hair. That was the haircut I had in North Korea. I fell for it. But I was cracked by then. I went from being the world champion to this guy that ran Pizza Hut, St. Louis. Ted just hired his friends to run the wrestling. And his friends just hired people.

77:54It'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 braids became good. Bobby Cox, 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? Yeah, 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 an anxiety. I didn't know what anxiety was. I had one isn't that crazy that just some fucking idiot can ruin your life like that Wow and like with that you drop he 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

78:49No, no, nothing about that. Just the no he just wanted just Rick Blair, that's that's that's NWA whatever you know What year was this? Well, I mean, 90, 1991. 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? Oh, yeah. So 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. I was going, God, I was just lost. And she goes, what are you doing? I said, I'm just feeling anxious. I don't know if that's even a word, right? and if that's the word for it.

79:59She said, take this. I took it. It felt normal. I said, what is that? She said, it's antics. And I never even thought to ask her why she was taking it. Yeah, there's so many people on that shit. Yeah. They were explaining it to me last night. They were saying that, you know, like, if you've got all these problems and stress and all these things are fucking with you, you take it, 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. Now that I've been with Chad and Mike and all that, they're accessible to me all the time. Plus, we dropped my own line in Florida and all 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 from the 2-milligram bar, right? Took a quarter of it and replaced it with a quarter of a wuchu.

80:58Not a wuchu, but a mic bite. The edibles that Mike has. Then boom. It took me over a month. But I finally got it. We're just gone. I woke up with no side effects. The edibles will make you sleep good. Really good. Yeah, for sure. So how much were you taking a day? Xanax. It only 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. I took, well, it just took me a month, maybe five weeks. I take one, two milligram bar at night to sleep. I did. 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 that 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 in a ring and had to wrestle a match where I couldn't feel my hands from my anxiety. Really?

82:00Yeah, it was that bad. That's so crazy because if anybody saw you and saw your persona, they would never imagine a million years that confidence is ever a problem. Well, you know, they have shows like this where you can be honest about yourself. You know, 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, say, what the hell's wrong with you? You know what I mean? Hunter was there. Hunter would say, the only one that doesn't know Ric Flair is you.

82:45I know, but when you lose it, it's hard to get it back once you lose your self-confidence. Yeah, I can imagine. What year did you retire? I officially retired in 2008. I should have stayed retired, but I was paying alimony to three different women, so I had to go back to work. 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 interest. Really? Oh, yeah, easy. Oh, my God. Jesus Christ. World champion. Oh, my God. People can learn from that, too. Yeah, I finally 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. But finally. How long did you have to pay Alamo for? Well, I started paying it in 20. Let me see. I paid my first wife. I had to pay $2,500 a month from 81 to 83.

84:06Then 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 980,000 then I had two other wives just in and out the door but that's another 500 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

85:28with cannabis than I ever made in wrestling Really? Yeah. That's wild. That's great to hear that. I never made the big paydays. I was gone by the time all that came around. Oh, really? Yeah. You were a huge bridge and all that right before the Attitude Era. Yep. What's the Attitude Era? That is when 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 it on you know monday nights i'm good here stone colds giving people the double bird and then stunning them and throwing cans of beer around and fucking pouring 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.

86:30There 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 wrestling is yee-haw, ba-ba-ba-ba. And he goes, this is the end of that. Now 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. And this is all Vince's idea. Yeah, of course. And Stephanie pulled it off. Stephanie was great. Unbelievable. On her DX, all that. Yep. Shawn Michaels was the best performer of all time. It was just 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.

87:22I mean, football stadiums, soccer stadiums, baseball stadiums. Sports have copied the WWE. Yeah. 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'd ever thought wrestling would have got that big? Yeah. Right. Unbelievable. And what do you think about now that they have celebrities do guest masks, like Floyd Mayweather and Logan Paul? Logan Paul actually does some wild shit. 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.

88:13I always tell people, just forget that Jake Paul is a YouTube guy and watch him box. Yeah. 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, 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's smashing the mitts, like, Jesus, that guy can still fuck you up. He don't want to fight Mike. In this world with hormone replacement and vitamins and he does all this electrical muscular stimulation recovery stuff.

89:11When they were training Mike for that Roy Jones fight, 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 hurt you Yeah, if Jake Paul's on the other side of the ring and he sees Mike Tyson just fucking bobbing and weaving He's gonna have a recognition. Yeah, he's gonna look over and go. Oh my god. That's really Mike Tyson. Yeah. Look at this Oh, yeah, fuck that dude. I'm talking you make it still at 55 and I think and At 55 the power is the last thing to go but the thing is the speed is still there. Yeah 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 like most of the hits that he hit him with,

90:00unless it was a jab or something like that, was to the body. Yeah. He probably made some sort of a fight. Roy doesn't even be fighting. Well, Roy looked really good against Pettis. Yeah. I know, but Roy's been hit a lot. He has. He certainly has. Yeah. He needs to calm that down. as does Evander. Yeah, well, I think he just still loves it, though. Yeah. That's the thing. Don't we all? He had a boxing match with Anthony 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 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, he still loves to compete. I know. I mean the guy was when Roy's time when he was the champ he was a fucking sass oh no no

90:50Oh 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 Yeah, so he has like one bicep that's twice the size of the other one like he flexes. Look at it Escambia high school, not crazy. Yeah it's crazy yeah roy in his prime was something really special his speed and his timing and everything i mean it's it's hard to see a guy like that fight way past his prime look at him there like jesus christ look at that bicep that's insane 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

91:42entertainment wise he was somewhere between like prince hasim named 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 this like evander bothers me When I saw Vander, 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. Is there a concussion that stands out to you? Is the hardest your bell ever got rung? Is there a moment or something? You know, to my knowledge, I've never had one. I'm sure I have. Oh, my God. Is that possible? No, I'm sure I have. Yeah, but I mean, you should. There should have been some time in all of these hours. I've been knocked out. But back then, I'm talking about in the 80s,

92:34when we used to use the chairs and that. But it's funny, if you don't know about it, if you have an awareness, which we all have an awareness now, then feel something. You think, well, maybe I have a concussion. Back then, the only people that got concussions were football players. 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 eating these 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 Neal Sporn on, two pieces of tape, and I'm getting to the bar.

93:22the thing that surprises me the most is the no 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 because 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 when i look at this Yeah, this is you. This is what you did. It hurts. It still hurts. Just took a stitch it on an hour ago. I gotta look at this. Knowing, knowing, knowing that I have taken two sledgehammer shots to I've taken your two best sludge hammer shots Jesus Christ dude now now wherever you are come out here and let's see what the nature boy has got for you Crowd goes wild. Wow. You're covered in your own blood. Look at this young buck. How did you get that slice in your forehead?

95:15Just 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. That is crazy. Well, you know what? Because I cut this way. I didn't cut the guys with the bad scar. Right. You cut sideways. Yeah, I cut down 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 Ian and Vince, they constantly kept me going. And 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 to Hunter, Vince, all those guys at WWE for bringing me back in 2001. The steel chair matches. That's what I want to talk about

96:11because 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 is... 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, brother, 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. I said, 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.

97:23Oh, Jesus Christ. Look at the chair. Oh, my God, dude. There's no way to not get hurt. Absolutely. You walk back in the locker room, you're going, shit but you could hit him too hard he didn't care Brock's not hardly raised man yeah I have a question you once cut a promo when you were back in WCW when 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 gonna come out of your 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 which is my goodness uh 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 picking all of his clothes here shirts

98:34suits that's me i've lived the life of a king because the people have allowed me to It gets better and better. At one point. Forever. 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. No way. You got to see him. He drops an elbow for no reason. Here's it at. The one stipulation. I think it's back actually. It's right here. It's right here. I ain't going home He's handcuffed himself to the right Get your ass out here Come on Okay Don't go away please Bishop You turn the camera off And I'll be naked When you come back He handcuffs himself to the fucking rope And at one point you're ripping up $100 bills and you take off Gucci shoes and you throw them into the crowd. Did you ever get those back? No.

100:27I 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 at. Because there's no way he just launches it into the $2,000 shoe. Oh, 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, do 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. 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.

101:42I mean, we've agreed to agree, but I was pushed down so far in the company that, like, 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 a lawyer for the time off, not missing Nitro, missing Thunder, the secondary show nobody went to, right? Right. And he sued me. and they 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 me 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,

102:39But the minute I cashed a check, then I would be admitting that I'd work for him again. Just another screw job. Then he ended up bankrupting the company anyway. 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 anything any other forms of entertainment before like how do you how were you able to cut promos like that i never i just thought about them on the road wow you listen 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 him taking all your clothes off handcuffing yourself to the road

103:45I'm just trying to get it with attention But it's so interesting how it becomes like almost like a stand-up act like you figure out how to do it Yeah doing it a lot. Yeah. Yeah Well every week every night was different. I mean that just For me, the 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 and just not care. Or you can do it because you're trying to gain that, 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 them like that tomorrow, but I can't wrestle anymore. I could, but the 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, how old were you when you stopped wrestling entirely? I had a match last summer. Whoa! Yeah, I was 73. Wow!

104:55We did 8,000 people in Nashville. Who'd you have a match with? It was me and my son-in-law Andrade against Jay Lethal and Jeff Jarrett. And you were 73? Mm-hmm. Jesus. What's the record? Who's the oldest guy that's ever wrestled? Jerry Lawler. You know, Jerry just got real sick, though. Jerry wrestled lately. Now, about the last six months, Jerry got real sick. Oh, no. Yeah. Jerry had, we thought it was a stroke, but it was actually a heart attack. Mm-hmm. So. and Jerry doesn't drink or do any drugs whatsoever well time gets you eventually especially when you think about that all the punishment that you do to your body who knows what the fuck is going on after decades of that it's crazy it's crazy 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 it's working out

105:56especially 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 what i think i think it's because of the free squats that i don't my hips and all that everything yeah good place we do what would you do like sets of 100 no i could i got where i i would challenge myself actually the hardest thing i ever did i would do a sensible 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. So, I think my best for like, because I used to, when you're by yourself, right, you're 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. And then, but the big thing

106:47I did for a long time over the years when I couldn't get to a gym in the old days is let's take a deck of cards and make the jokers 20, right? And do the joker 20 free squats, 20 crunches, 20 push-ups. You do all that all the way through. It would be 440 of each. I've done that in 34 minutes. Jesus. That's the sum of it. That's pretty hard. The push-ups, by the time, even you do two, but it's 440 push-ups, whatever 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 and catch wrestling. They really emphasize conditioning. Oh yeah. Carl Gotch, you would have to go through like a year of his conditioning routine before he would teach how to wrestle. Oh yeah, for sure. Vern got in the same way. All we did with Vern outdoors in that barn, 30 degrees, 28 degrees, it was conditioned. I weighed 300. Ken Patera weighed 330.

107:50Just 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. 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 of my front yard, said, you quit everything you've ever done in life. You're not quitting on me. Get in the fucking car. That was Vern Guy. 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, boy, you couldn't convince me of that.

108:44You know, the worst thing is to blow a guy up, you know, 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 was, he killed us. You know, Iron Sheik, right? Sure, yeah. So Kaz was an Olympic caliber wrestler, right, from Iran. Mm-hmm. And freestyle, and that's where he had tried to turn the guy over, right? It's different than folk style. So Billy could never turn him over. So Billy said get in the folk style position. So he got I guess and Billy dropped his knee Right here into the side. He couldn't walk for a month so bad Then slapped him around no madness 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

109:36Because 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 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 still chairs there for the crowd, so it's probably been forever. Yeah, I just very rarely. In St. Louis, which was our home base, you couldn't even grab the rope for that. You're cheating, you know what I mean? Yeah. I'm wrestling Dick the Bruiser, right? And I go to Sam. You know, Dick was like 56 or something. I just got, became a champion. I said, Sam, let me just grab the rope so Dick can put his shoulders down. Oh, no, no, no. You know, this is from Wilbert Snyder's women winning with the abdominal stretch. Or Burns winning with the sleeper. I mean, none of that. But St. Louis loved it.

110:36They had never said 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 in pro wrestling means that you're getting extra power, extra leverage. I'm doing it behind the referee's back. Yeah. Anybody who has someone in a submission, and if you grab the rope, especially in a figure-four leg lock, in fact, it the other person is more hurt force 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 it's there's 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 said that.

111:35You 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. Yeah, it was. 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. It's a lot more action but watching gracie those guys with that gracie luck that was the most boring shit in the world no shit that's hilarious like 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 legit fighter that went over to wwe yeah it was wwe at the time or wwf wwe wwe no no How old is Ken? Ken's got to be 57, maybe. How old is Ken Shamrock?

112:36He was the world's most dangerous man, right? Yeah, yeah. Yeah, so he was the first, like, legit guy 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? He was a tough guy, though, right? Yeah. The Rock vs. Ken Shamrock, 1998. He could work. Yeah. Oh, dude, he definitely could work. He was fucking jacked too. 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.

113:35They had like 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 They didn't and the geese so like everybody would grab it like when Gracie would get a hold you Everybody would grab the gi and that would play right into his hands next thing You know he's just pulling you on top of them and stretch your arm out Hmm did you think that like when you were a young man if that was around that you would have done it? No, I don't consider it. I didn't I

114:18Don'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 that that was bad for everybody. I knew it was gonna happen Yeah, 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's 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 that he got killed, right? I got fucked up a couple of times. We 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

115:03It's just so hard to do that into your 30s to learn how to do MMA in your 30s when you don't really me He had a background He's gonna 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 kind of halfway crazy to do that anyway. Yes, for sure. And he did do it the right way. He went to a 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 in certain skills with certain body types, if you don't learn how to strike when you're really young, it's very difficult. It's depending upon the person. and some people could pick it up in their 30s. But with a lot of guys, if they don't learn how to strike when they're young,

115:52they just don't have that speed and ability. What do you think would have happened if Brock would have started right away? He would have been a world, like, 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. He would have dominated. Yeah. What did you think of John Jones? He's a bad man. Yeah. John's a bad man. Yeah. He's just so good. He just knows how to win. He murdered that kid. Yeah, 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. John, I mean, he's only had one loss in his entire career that was a bullshit loss.

116:43It 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 get 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, and you know when that guy shot a power double. It was like getting hit by a bus. He was so big. It would be interesting, but Cain Velasquez beat Brock up a couple of times. And I think John is at least at that level. But the thing about Cain was, Cain, he would hit you with a volume of striking. Like for a heavyweight, Cain Velasquez, he had the craziest gas tank of all time. Cain's cardio was just off the charts. Yeah, I got that on pretty well. He came over to us for a while.

117:42Yeah? Yeah. That's right, he did. Right. And he had that kind of weird fake MMA match with Brock over, yeah. In Saudi. Yeah. Why didn't he stick with pro wrestling? Do you know, Tony, what happened with Cain Velasquez? He didn't make the progress that they thought he would. He's a real nice guy. Yeah. He, they just messed that whole thing up tremendously. It was crazy. They tried to make like a fake actual fight. Yeah. And it was just a nightmare. And it just didn't. Yeah, they put on like 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. It's just you have to have a pop. Yeah, you have to be larger than life. You have to entertain. Yes. And he was more of like just a stoic fighter.

118:39Yeah, they were doing low leg kicks, which is, again, it ain't flying in the WWE. Right. It's boring. In the UFC, it's unbelievable when you hear that crack and it's real. But you know that Kane does 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, 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 fought MMA, didn't he? I don't think we're right. Didn't raid you have an MMA fight. I don't think you may fight. No, I don't think so now 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 they had a pro wrestler who fought with a mask on that's why I could confuse the ray Mysterio. Yeah, who's that guy? Crow Cop fought some dude and head kicked him

119:39And you see the blood trickling out of his mask Who was that? Oh, Dos Caros 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 Boom. And look, you see the blood just dripping out of his helmet. They're not showing it yet. That guy's pretty tough, huh? Oh, my God. He was terrifying. Mirko Krokop was a destroyer. What's he doing now? Krokop 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

120:42I mean other than Ken Shamrock going from MMA to 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 Bobby Lashley fought a bunch of legit MMA fights Ronda Ronda went back she went the other way though yeah she went over there yeah going from pro wrestling to Batista did you see Batista had a real MMA fight. Yep. Yeah. Yeah, he won. Yeah See if you can find that I mean wasn't the most impressive fight, but he had a real fight. Yeah, real legit MMA fight Dave'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, you know what about Matt Riddle Matt Riddle's another guy yeah went over from MMA WWE and thriving thriving and you know he kind of got fucked over in MMA

121:46You know he got he tested positive for weed and that's how you got kicked out of the UFC Which now is Dan Severn of course Oh, yeah. That's right. Dan Severin went over and, well, Dan Severin did a lot of, like, pro wrestling matches, before and after he did that. Yeah. That's right. Forgot about Dan. Yeah. Oh, and Fry never wrestled. Don Fry never wrestled? Didn't he do something in Japan? Not with us, though. No? Not with us. Japan's got a whole different scene, huh? Yeah. You know, I'm good friends with Josh Barnett, and Josh Barnett does a lot of commentary for pro wrestling. 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 The champion over there who fought Hicks and Gracie in a real fight

122:41So they they're their pro wrestling 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 in the 70s 80s. It was incredible. We had the two companies in all Japan, New Japan Inoki and Baba it was huge. And Brody and Hanson were making if I'm not mistaken in the 80's were making like 15 to 20 maybe 25,000 a week a piece 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 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. $100 American dollars for a beer. you're in the right place. Is it really? Almost.

123:52Hell, it's $25 for a Diet Coke in Tokyo. Wow. Yeah, the bars are where they're expensive. That's why you've got to find the sponsors. Being the world champion, I always had someone who wanted to take me out. And then there's Shinjuka, where all the bathhouses are. That's a whole different story, too. What's that like? That's like walking to red carpet and getting a bath. With all kinds of candles around you, liquor and beautiful Japanese woman. Did you ever have a night or a week or a month or something? They used to say to me, Flair-san, you want Korean barbecue or Shinjuka? Shinjuka, 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 kind of waste of time.

124:55Having that experience. Only when the ATM, when my ATM car 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. You know actually when I started going in the 70s, there was still a little bit of hostility. Oh Yeah, and 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 went down between us 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, did they speak English? Did you just kind of like figure it out as you were wrestling? Figure it out and the referee, you kind of go back and forth.

125:51Back then, you know, now the Japanese wrestlers, there's a few of them, but in the old days, those guys were all tougher than shit, 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. I'm just not, when I'm wrestling Jumbo Ceruto, who was an Olympian of 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 videos of Japanese pro wrestling that turns into an actual fight. Whether, you know, like they thought it was a work and it turns out to be a shoot. and you're seeing a guy recognizing in the middle of the match that this is an actual fight

126:47and the guy beats the fuck out of the guy. Yeah, yeah, they do. Yep. Wow. I don't know if they do it anymore, but they did, yep. See if you can find some of those. 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. 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. So, I mean, they understand our language enough, but there's always a communicator, a referee going back and forth. But you never know.

127:37I mean, I had some great matches over there, and I had some. They looked okay, but they weren't good. Does that make sense? Because I couldn't hang with the guys. Because they're good amateur wrestlers, I just couldn't hang with. I wrestled in high school, a state champion, and that stuff. But those kids over there, it's all they have. They're either going to make it to the big time, or they're not. 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 a tough one for them. 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.

128:24So Harley had to stand outside the ring. Oh, because they were going to try a double cross? Yeah. Oh. So how would they do something like that? Like you would think that you were going to 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 Saruda. 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's sitting there, seven foot Baba, right? smoking a big Roy tan cigar sir is there hardly walks over to Cerro 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 and knocked him sideways.

129:37He looked at Baba and said... And walked out. So a move like a suplex is something you would have discussed in advance. Because you had to know how to fall? What happened was that those Germans, they drop on your head after that. Yeah. You know. I mean. It's a belly to back. It's a belly to back. I mean. And there's only a couple of guys that can really do it safely. Yeah. I mean. Brock obviously. Kurt Angle's phenomenal. Yep. Kurt's a great athlete. Olympic gold medalist. Yeah. Yeah. But he. With a broken neck. Yeah. Yeah. I know. And a really badass. But so many guys that see this. Oh. I can do a German. Well. Shit. And that's not everybody. I can't give a guy a safe German. Give it to them, but doesn't mean it's gonna be safe Right and then you land on the back your head landing 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

130:34You're taking it way too high. Yeah, what's the land right here? Here it is right here boom Yeah, you see Kurt do it. That's perfect. Kurt is you notice how he's bringing him down. He's hitting his shoulders first Yeah Yeah. Yeah, he's just ragdolling us, dude. Yeah, he's got complete control. That's a guy who's done that probably 150,000 fucking times. Look how effortlessly he does it. And 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. Okay. Who's going to stop that guy from taking him down? Yeah. In MMA? So quick. Yeah. Oh, my God. Yeah. That 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 less wrestler like Bo Nickel

131:29He's a guy who just entered into the UFC elite amateur wrestler who just had his first MMA fight against You know like a good solid Jamie Pickett who's like a good solid Mid-level MMA fighter he just fucking manhandled yeah just me this is the difference in the ability to control bodies The way those wrestlers are and the thing about a real elite wrestler is you're you're always worried He's gonna take you down So he's 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's the the it makes the toughest athletes that the strongest mentally because the grind is so rough Yeah, it's so hard the training is so fucking hard and amateur wrestling and amateur sport I don't think there's anything harder than wrestling

132:15Yeah, when those guys and they come over to MMA they also have a different mindset. They're just they're just tougher It is fucking tougher than I mean there's elite tough kickboxers elite tough everybody in this world But in just in sheer numbers of wrestlers those guys are just fucking tougher man Yeah, 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 know wrestling Nobody's gonna give a shit at the grocery store. Nobody gives a shit on the SPN And those guys that are the lead, the Jordan Burroughs of the world, those guys are just respected by people who know. Beating people with your hips. With everything. With speed, with technique, with everything. Undefeated Khabib, it always freaked me out when I'd see him put his, when he would already have somebody on their back and you'd put his legs underneath their legs.

133:05So 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. It's like some guys the masters at that combat Sambo. It's a Gordon Ryan is the best Brazilian Jiu-jitsu practitioner really ever He's openly said that that's better than Jiu-jitsu 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. Yeah, they're so good at it That's awesome. Do you watch UFC now? Oh, yeah, who do you like to watch? um well i like um 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

134:00juliana beat her once and amanda beat her the second time gonna be interesting juliana's a Tough cookie, man. Yeah, my God. She's strong. She's good. She's tough as shit. I grabbed her one time. She's mad. You know, Chad, the guy I'm in business with, is her manager. And we were at 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 got this. And I really grabbed her. I always played with her. Brother, she was gone. Like that. And I mean, I really latched on to her. She's gone. Like that. Yeah. Well, she's in the peak of her prime right now. She's a serious grappler, too. When she got Amanda Nunes' back and strangled her, holy shit, what a fucking upset that was. How many of you have been to live? Three or four. Do you enjoy it? Yeah, yeah, yeah. I love it. I've gotten to know Dana fairly well.

134:52He's always really nice to me. He's the fucking man. Yeah, great guy. He's no better person to be running that. No, God, unreal. It's just like Vince running WWE. Yeah. Dana running UFC is the same sort of thing. You can't imagine 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 going to do? He might leave. Got a lot of fucking money. I think one day he's going to. I don't know, though. He loves it, though. He loves it. Yeah, so does Vince. He loves the setups. I can call Dana at 1 o'clock in the morning. We'll talk for three hours on fights. Just talk. Wow. Just talk about this and that. We've got this going. He's telling me secret shit. Yeah. I'm like, what else is going on? Tell him about negotiations and all the behind-the-scenes stuff. Yeah. Yeah. Ariel's got a good job with them, right? Ariel Helwani? Yeah.

135:41No, Ariel is independent now. He does his own thing. Oh, 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. 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 using the 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 shows very successful. Yeah Oh, you're nice guy just saw him with some man. He's always been pretty nice. I'm friends with his uncle his uncle's Gadsad the You know the evolutionary what is he is you? What is his? He's a biologist right what is a Gadsad he's a professor but a very

136:30intense intellectual and a really fun guy. He just happens to be Ariel's uncle, which is hilarious. That's fantastic. Ariel's pretty tough, too, right? Is he? I don't think he ever fought. I don't even know if he trains. He looks like he did. Scared of him? No, but I thought he fought at one time. I don't believe so. I could be wrong. I've never heard of him. Well, you would know. But I don't know everybody who trains. I'm always shocked that some of the people. He's well-built. He's very well-spoken, too. Very smart guy. But I'm always shocked at, like, 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, like, 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.

137:25I don't understand how you couldn't. To really be able to judge it and understand it. You ever thought about doing some jiu-jitsu? No. I've thought about a lot of things over the years. Did you learn any catch wrestling? Did you learn any of that real old school submission stuff? No, no, no. I mean, I've been, I've had it demonstrated to me in Houston. I'm sure. No. You 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. Billy Robinson was a real catch wrestler. Billy was trained by Gotch. So only a few of those guys around. They could hurt you bad, boy. Oh, my God. Yeah, catch wrestling was a particularly brutal style of grappling. In England. Yeah. It was really tough. Because they started out with real submission moves. Yeah.

138:22I mean it was it was wrestling, but it was also real submission moves and those guys physically were There were such fucking specimens you you know farmer burns was 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 noose around his neck and support his weight this photos of it See if you find farmer burns. He was famous for doing this, but he was a 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, look at all bro. He's literally hanging by his fucking neck Jesus Christ I Mean how insane I mean These are different fucking human beings. This is a different time of the world I mean, even look at the way they're built.

139:20They're just strong. It's not bodybuilder muscles. These guys are just animals. That was Farmer Burns. 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 Huron Gracie. He submitted Dean Lister. He submitted some legit guys with catch wrestling moves in like grappling tournaments and an 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

140:11Like that on it does all that functional strength does those guys were way ahead. Yeah way ahead They were doing that way back then even some of the best fucking conditioned athletes ever Yeah And that's where it all started out it all started out with like legit wrestling Yeah, and then it became pro wrestling when you know they realize like look we're doing all this magic Can't like actual fight every night, so right it became this thing. I think God Thank God like me came along. Yeah. Yeah I didn't mind doing the hour, but I didn't want to fight all the night. 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.

141:10the 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 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. And the biggest problem is really if they've 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 Ashley went there.

142:23The biggest group they had to come up at 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. Totally. Yeah. And his daughter literally changed it. It used to be called the divas. 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. Yeah. Which gave it a big shot. But the only one that wasn't afraid of Ronda was my daughter. Right. Then my daughter, Ronda, would tear it down. Oh, my God. literally the best women's wrestling matches ever. Ashley's not afraid of her. The key thing with Ronda because she was, Ronda was ragdolling them with the judo, right? And those girls weren't used to that. And us wrestling, you know, the people that

143:20knew 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. Yeah, she's so great 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 thing they did 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 bro. Brock started it pro wrestling

144:08She's the most successful right by 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 learn that one little try It's they were they were ready. Those are pure athletes that that's what you need to be That's how you need to and and they earn their keep. I mean they were You know that 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 and Rousey, motherfucker. It's 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.

144:56You know, it wasn't for that diverticulitis where he had to get, I think he got like six inches of his intestines removed, which is a fucking major surgery. 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. It was rough. Yeah. 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. Yeah. Which is bananas to become the UFC heavyweight champion. And 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? But Brock was so big. He was so ridiculously big. He's still big. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, still big. Much respect. Yeah.

145:54Look at the size difference between the two of them. that was an incredible fight though I mean Randy was so under look at the size of Brock 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 Japanese guy in LA. I was there for that. That was the outdoor event. I think that was a K1 event. And then he fought Heath Haring, steamrolled Heath Haring. 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 Frank was tough. Frank was elite. He was so good off his back too. Would fuck Frank, would fuck guys like Frank up, or guys who

146:56fought Frank, is like, it's very unusual that a guy who's that big is so good fighting off of his back. And when, you know, Brock went to the ground with Frank, Frank just laced up a leg and started rolling into a leg bar. See if you can find that. There's a dangerous position. No, Brock said it hurt like I had some of it. Well, not only did it hurt, but I think... It looked like Brock was going to kill the guy. 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 Noguera. 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.

147:41Like, 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 fuck out of Frank Mir. Yeah. His face looked 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 was the third guy to use that. First was Buddy Rogers, then Jack Briscoe. Jack Briscoe was tough. Wow. 31-0 his junior year at Oklahoma State. 31-0, 31 pins. No one took him down. Jesus. Yeah, Jack Briscoe was a badass, brother. Is that Gerald Briscoe's brother? Wow. Jack Briscoe. So he invented the figure for him? 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 it worked

148:47if you roll over in a figure 4 it reverses the polars of the energies even though Jack wasn't hardly raised tough but nobody played with Jack either nobody I tell you another real badass with 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 and 0 at 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. I see Gerald once in a while. Gerald was real tough, too. so um yeah he's a big comedy fan we put on a we put on the first ever we got a full-size wrestling

149:48ring right before the pandemic and we put it in the main room of the comedy store yeah and me and my buddies we wrote a whole event all literally 90 of the card went on to i mean huge aew stars it's crazy yeah and uh but back then they were just about to break and we had the most fun and And Gerald Briscoe said that is the greatest first time wrestling show he's ever seen. Oh, good. We had a blast. He would know. Yeah. He would know. He was Vince McMahon's right hand man. He had that at the Comedy Store? Yeah. It barely fit between. 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. Oh, yeah.

150:45I got. What happened to you? 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 full heel. You must have been in your glory. Oh, we had the best time ever. That is so Tony Hinchcliffe. Look at you with the fucking sunglasses on. That's a different thing. I'm playing the Macho Man. We did an all-wrestler roast where everybody was different wrestlers. And someone was Ric Flair. I was the Macho Man. There's been a lot of wrestling in the... I did a wrestling podcast. Well, Ratty Roddy was always at the store. He was a great mentor. He actually... 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. Turning the cards? Oh, yeah. There it is.

151:42Oh, that's David Arquette. 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 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, 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 and all. He was? Yeah, he's Dusty's brother and all. Oh, wow. I didn't know that. But anyway, hold on one second. I have to set this up properly.

152:35so 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 uh to like really do anything so they went and 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 want to make this big entrance and uh the other guys all thought it was so dumb that they put a piece of wood well i'm just gonna let you watch what happens because it's so legendary all i have to say is our partner is going to shock the world because he is none other than the Shaq Master! Hurrah! The Shaq Master! He's got his tarp chumper helmet with glitter on it. This is so dumb. I don't care who you are, boy!

153:52I 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 shock master'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.

154:40Because somehow you knew that the shit was about to hit the fan completely. There's my wife, 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 right so started 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 So when Sid starts yelling to cover for the fall, he's reacting to his voice. So he's going like that because he thinks that's his... Now the guy... So you're the man that ruins the world. They call me the Shockmaster. It's so stupid. Long enough, Sid Vicious. Oh, my God. Come on. You want a piece of me? You want a piece of me? He has to pretend like he's scared. Come and get me. I'm ready, Sid. I'm ready. This is the most low-budget shit of all time. Yeah.

156:07It's turbo-academy. Yeah. That was WCW back in the day. That's what Vince was competing with. Just laughing it up. Sorry. Fun times, man. When you look back on all of it, I mean, it's got to be, you 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 the important thing. Well, it's great that now you have another thing, too. And I'm on Joe Rogan's show. that's big time you don't know how many people have said can I tell them don't tell anybody I want to be surprised I want to tell everybody I'm really happy that you're doing this cannabis business now too I love it when guys find a new thing here it is the woo choose 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 that were it's legal Yeah. Where are you living these days? I live in Tampa.

157:09But my wife's got two places in, 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 Channelside. Tampa's phenomenal. 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. Oh, absolutely. I signed autographs for Fitterman. 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 the sporting memorabilia shows, Comic-Con, stuff like that. Nice. Yeah, very nice. Enjoying it? Loving it.

158:02But it's so great that you've got a great source of revenue after the career. Oh, 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. 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 when I was in college, right? so I just a distant and it became it was really a Illegal thing back into which I was you know fairly conscious of all my friends did it all that Didn't bother me just wasn't my thing, but it's taken me a while to practice your back, but I like the buzz It's nice and the edibles Absolutely work. I can vouch for that. Oh, yeah, and then no hangover. Yeah, no hangover and also the

158:53In far as the being for people that have pain and so it works. Yeah. Yeah, it ain't been gay. It's much better Oh, yeah, it's a lot better. Yeah reduction of inflammation from CBD is so good I know so many people that have had arthritis and all sorts of issues. They start taking CBD. It all goes away. Yep Absolutely you had asthma well as a kid. Yeah, wow it just like went away. Yeah, I'll grow it Yeah, which is it's not unusual. Okay, so I just couldn't smoke. I had nothing. I liked it, but 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 a plane loaded full of milk, ultra, and vodka right now? Yeah. Yeah. There's nothing quite like drinking. No. It's the best. We need to go out one night. Yeah, we do. Yeah. A hundred percent. How long are you in town for? I'm a lot of fun. I could stay. One more day.

159:48You come visit me to Tampa. Yeah. I've got to come to camp. Yeah, you've got to come visit me, please. 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. 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. It's just fucking cool. Thank you. It's very cool for me, trust me. Thank you. I'm very honored. Big fan. Tony, all week, this guy's been chomping at the bit. Tony. He's so excited to be here. Thank you. He'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.

160:39You 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... All-American against him. You've 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. He can drink a jack. Oh, yeah. Oh, we had the other take around. Marco, you're like, I'm not calling you, brother. He's home. You can hear me. I lost two Rolexes with him I'm drinking Jack Daniels How'd you lose two Rolexes? Well one I heard I threw into a bowl of spaghetti

161:22and told some chick that I had 13 of at home I did hear about this I wake up with two girls in bed right and I go look around and watch 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 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 Sabatinos, 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 them in my pocket. Yeah. But we've had so much fun together. I mean, we traveled in Japan together and Europe. He's just a great guy, man. We had a great podcast with him. Yeah. The Undertaker. He was awesome. He's the best. Yeah. Yeah. If we could all four of us get together, I think that would be a good night. Let's do that. Let's do it. 100%.

162:29Marco, 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 home. absolutely alright 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 I really appreciate you being here I'm honored thank you thank you Tony bye everybody