Well, it’s been about a month, so the people at the WWE Network have deemed that it’s once again time for a Stone Cold podcast. Once again taped from Steve Austin’s Broken Skull Ranch (as opposed to live from whichever city happens to be hosting Monday Night Raw), Stone Cold’s guest this time was the 16-time world heavyweight champion, Ric Flair. What did the Nature Boy have to say to the Texas Rattlesnake? Here are some choice bits from the conversation.
– On being adopted under unusual circumstances: “I was stolen from a hospital and put in an orphanage. My original parents, I’ve never met [them] and I’ve never wanted to… My [adoptive] mother had just lost a baby at birth and couldn’t have children.”
– On the initial gimmick he pitched: “I went to Verne [Gagne] and said I wanted to call myself Ramblin’ Ricky Rhodes. He said, ‘What?’ I said I wanted to call myself Ramblin’ Ricky Rhodes and go as Dusty’s brother… He said, ‘That ain’t happening. What’s wrong with Ric Flair?'”
– On surviving an airplane crash in 1975: “We hit the ground going 230 miles per hour. That’s what the speedometer was stuck on… [The paramedic] said, ‘Better hurry, I think we’re going to lose this one.’ I thought they were talking about me, but Bob Bruggers had gone into shock. So, I grabbed this guy and said, ‘There’s a note in my shaving kit in my bag. You gotta get that to a girl named Sheila.'”
– On the cost of the robes he would wear to the ring: “It started out at $3,200 for the first one, and the rest of them were 10 to 12 thousand.”
– On prioritizing wrestling over his family life: “I could either be on the road and be the second best, or I could be on the road and be the best. It wouldn’t have made my home life any different, because I’m on the road anyway… The business was always fun.”
– On his trademark limousine: “I was in Raleigh, and the governor was selling his limousine. It was a ’78 Lincoln limousine, tricked out, TV inside, the phones where you can talk to the driver up front. I went over and bought it for ten grand.”
– On his in-ring chemistry with Dusty Rhodes: “I can’t put it into words. We had arguments, don’t misunderstand me… This is a guy, supremely confident. We go to lock up in Greensboro, sold out, and he says, ‘Just like the opening at Caesar’s Palace, kid. Hang on.'”
– On finally making his way to the WWF: “I was excited, man. I had so many friends up there… The sad thing is, Arn [Anderson] was leaving and I was coming, so we missed that time together. But he understood why I couldn’t stay [in WCW] anymore.”
– On working with Bobby ‘The Brain’ Heenan: “People need to know this: Bobby Heenan, if he had just been a performer, would go down in history as one of the top 20 performers of all-time. Bobby could bump and work and talk and everything.”
– On his retirement match at WrestleMania XXIV with Shawn Michaels: “It was Shawn working with himself, and me just there. And of course, afterwards, the response from the crowd… How many athletes get to experience a time like that? I don’t know of any. I mean, I’ve seen Lou Gehrig run out on the field and all that, but to have that three-day run, and then on top of that, they tell me to come over to Raw and do that [ceremony] where everybody comes out, I was so devastated the next day that I wasn’t in the business.”
– On his late son Reid being brought up in a WWE storyline: “I just know that it’s very hard for [Charlotte] emotionally, and for me. But I understand the business… I just don’t like to see [Charlotte] crying. She’s cried enough. And those are real tears when she starts talking about him. She went to work every day to do something for him, because it’s what he always wanted to be. And now she has fulfilled his dream.”
– On Charlotte entering the world of wrestling: “I never even called anybody to get her in. Johnny Ace walked up to her in Miami in 2012… He said, ‘Why aren’t you wrestling?’ He’s known her forever, and she’d just graduated from college, she was personal training… That was in April, and in July, she was in Tampa.”
– On Triple H: “He actually is my best friend. He and I have gotten so close in that period of time. Bringing up a sad note, when Reid died, the first person I called was Hunter.”
– On his relationship with Vince McMahon: “I can’t say anything bad about him. He’s treated me like gold… He’s always been there. When I’ve had financial woes, through my divorces, he’s lent me money. But I’ve paid him back… One time, I was into him for $800,000. Eight hundred grand. He said, ‘I wouldn’t lend my kid this kind of money.’ But I got my WrestleMania check from Shawn… I won’t tell you what it was, but it was a lot. Biggest paycheck I ever got in my life, right? ‘For Deposit Only.’ Handed it right back to [Vince].”
