During a recent interview with TalkSport, Ric Flair commented on being chewed out by Vince McMahon before his 2007 promo with Carlito, and more. You can check out some highlights from the interview below:
On dealing with self-confidence issues ahead of his retirement match: “I wasn’t even ready. They kept putting me in these situations. It wasn’t to rib me, but he wouldn’t settle for me being any less than I could be. I had so many issues with self-confidence back then, I could give you 100 examples. Once you lose it, especially when you’re getting older, it’s so hard to bring it back. If it was a no pressure situation, I had no problem, but if it was a main event – I put so much pressure on myself that the self-confidence issues rolled in.
“You listen to me speak and you think, ‘How could that be possible for Ric Flair?’ Well, it was hard for me. When it was over it was so rewarding, I’d say thank you to everybody, then I’d walk away and think why can’t I just be me. I just couldn’t make the mental wheels turn as fast as my body.”
On being chewed out by Vince McMahon before his 2007 promo with Carlito: “What happened was, I just got my ass chewed up by Vince McMahon, literally ten minutes before that. Vince chewed my ass out and told me I needed to lead by example, not worry about what I was doing, that if he was worried he would take care of me. But he had just worn my ass out. I walked back to the locker room and Bruce Prichard was there and he said, ‘We need you to do this promo’. I said, ‘No problem!’ That’s the truth, there was no script. And I gave him everything Vince gave me and more!”
On his reflection on that time in his career: “I was average at best, but if you guys think it was great then I can live with that. I didn’t think it was great, the emotion was at a very high level because it was real. All the things I went through, where I was so demoralized, I’m over it all now and I couldn’t be happier. I’m just happy, married to a beautiful woman that supports me through anything, my life could not be better.”
