During a recent appearance on the “Oral Sessions with Renee Paquette” podcast, WWE Hall of Famer Ric Flair commented on why he left WWE, what he told Vince McMahon, and more. You can check out some highlights from the podcast below:
On the reason behind his WWE release: “I had a bunch of pending opportunities. I had a bunch of things that I was doing currently at the time that I signed my contract. They allowed those. Wendy [his wife] got to keep her shop. These are big things. I got to keep Cameo and a couple of other things. A couple of deals were coming along and I got to the point where, I was asking them, I probably exhausted them asking, not to grandfather me in, but to let me do them. Of course, the answer was, ‘You can do them, maybe’. I just decided I wanted to finally – which I did for three years – make a living not being under a wrestling payroll. That’s all it was…..there is no animosity whatsoever, it’s just business. I wanted to try something and they just had a different vision.”
On what he thinks WWE’s vision was for him: “To just get paid, basically, a lot of money. Nothing is wrong with that. I’m doing NWA 73, which is a huge deal. I was the last traveling world champion, 365, twice on Saturday and twice on Sunday. I did that for five years. Not a lot of people can say that. I probably wouldn’t have been able to do that. Not because Vince would have said no. It would have never got to him….I didn’t leave with any animosity. When I almost died four years ago, I found out who my friends were when I woke up, and I found out who my friends were when I left WWE. You’d be surprised, on the positive side, how many people reached out. I can also tell you, people who started rumors, no need to get into that. ‘Oh, he’s going to AEW. He and Tony Khan are friends.’ Yeah, we are friends, but I haven’t heard a word from Tony [Khan]. If he asks you, tell him I’m around [laughs].”
On his conversation with Vince after his release: “I talked to Vince after it was over and I said, ‘Whatever paths our lives take us, we’re always going to be brothers’. He said, ‘You’re damn right.’”
(h/t – 411 Wrestling)
