I don't know, nor have I ever met, Richard Morgan Fliehr, aka Ric Flair. I do know that wrestling wouldn't have played as big of a part in my childhood without him. Flair was the absolute foil during his reign in the ring, which launched in the 1980's and rode its way into the early stages of 2012.
Flair's flamboyance and boisterous nature in the ring lived in the same neighborhood as Mr. Perfect and Ravishing Rick Rude, but his execution of the classic villain was more entertaining than the aforementioned two men. Both of those guys are dead, and now Flair is fighting for his own life in a hospital. The 68-year-old had emergency surgery on his colon Monday, sits in critical condition as I write this, and there are more surgeries seemingly standing in his way of the hospital exit. He's got a long road of recovery if he survives.
Let's face it: wrestlers don't have a long life span once they leave the ring. Everybody has seen the great Mickey Rourke film "The Wrestler," but it's more than that. The torment they put their bodies through for the sake of the art and to make a living is brutal from day one until its finish. While the sport is staged and the fighters train for a bout like actors would for a theater play, the slams and steel chair back rubs are indeed real. The drugs that go into their system during a career — where natural selection plays a bigger role in than most professions — would slam the toughest internal body structure.
Ravishing Rick and Mr. Perfect didn't make it to their 45th birthdays, with Rude dying of heart failure caused by many years of drug usage. Randy "Macho Man" Savage had a heart attack while driving and died. Other wrestlers like the Texas Tornado and British Bulldog didn't make it into middle age either. The sport demands more than most people know, so Flair's odds were stacked against him.
During his heyday, it was hard to take your eyes off Flair in the ring, and his profile was set to go on blast again this year with the release of an ESPN 30 for 30 documentary about his tormented life out of the ring that supplemented the impact of his ring life. You'd have to be an award-winning screenwriter to dream up all the convoluted incidents with Flair, who has been through multiple marriages that saw him take assault from women, and the tragedy of losing his son, Reid, to a heroin overdose.
The problems he faced weren't all self-grown. While Flair was the ultimate playboy of wrestling, flashing the thousand-watt smile and high-rise life of a true character on the screen, he suffered from serious bouts of depression away from the spotlight. You can search wrestling and steady decline in the same line, and Flair's name will pop up.
He also influenced many wrestlers, including The Game, who introduced him in 2008 at his WWE Hall of Fame induction. Flair always went for the dramatics and made no secret of his tumultuous life, but he cared about the sport and gave back as much as he could. Flair's daughter went into wrestling to be like her dad, so his legacy isn't as tarnished as some would suspect. He's essentially lived the life and then some.
Now, he is merely trying to stick around.
I grew up watching Flair, Hulk Hogan, The Ultimate Warrior and Sting fly off the ropes, electrifying audiences who bought into the fable that the sport sold. I feel sad writing this, knowing that another wrestler may bite the dust before 2017 concludes. I shouldn't be surprised; wild men running around in tights inside a ring had its pleasures and warning signs.
But Flair left a mark on the sport. He had the fashion sense of Hugh Hefner, the endurance of a lion, and the knowledge of what he represented in wrestling. He loved playing the villain, so much that he made you root for him a few times.
Let's root for him now. They don't make many like Flair anymore. He is truly something else, a man who doesn't wish to hide anything about himself, no matter how ugly it may be. While far from perfect, Flair is one of those guys who makes the world a little more interesting whenever he pops up.
It'd be nice to see a wrestler survive the lifestyle for once.
