Second Nature

by Ric Flair

  I think about the week I came back after Reid’s death and how you told me that it was a horrible thing but that you wanted me back. I think about the promo I gave when we moved from Tampa to the Performance Center in Orlando and you finally said I had it. You were the first person I hugged when I walked through Gorilla after my match with Nattie. I replay these moments all the time, wishing we were still having them. From the first day I walked through the doors at FCW, you never stopped fighting for me and believing I had potential. I remember after my very first match with Emma at FCW in Tampa, how you told the class how proud you were of me. Never hiding your feelings. You were never shy about acknowledging that you had known me since I was born or telling the class I was spoiled rotten in high school.

  I always knew you felt where I was coming from in my promos. You never said it out loud, but I could see in your eyes that you understood whatever I was going through—just like a father would. I promise I will continue to reach for the brass ring. The world lost a little bit of magic when you left us, but your vision and hope for me, along with so many of my peers from NXT, have helped me make it to the big dance. And that’s because you could find something special in all of us, something we never knew we had. Thank you for that, Dusty. I hope you are smiling somewhere knowing that your presence, knowledge, and magic will live on in all of us forever.

  I love you, Dusty.

  Ashley

  2008 WWE Hall of Fame. No one else could have inducted me the way Paul did.

  Being in Evolution was tremendous. It was one of the best times in my career.

  Stylin’ and Profilin’ on Monday Night Raw with my man John Cena!

  1991: When the “Real” World Champion arrived in WWE.

  Having a few laughs backstage with The Rock. I’ve known him since he was twelve years old. So proud of him!

  Some of my fondest memories are nights like this, spending time with my sons.

  No matter how old she is, Ashley will always be my little girl.

  So what does your dad do for a living? My dad is the World Heavyweight Champion.

  Always by my side … always teaching me … always having fun.

  Custom made from head-to-toe. The special “Ric Flair” edition sweatshirt that was only available at his Gold’s Gyms.

  My favorite childhood memories are the ones where my family is together.

  My parents have always been my biggest fans. They came to every event.

  Hooray for Hollywood! The only time I was a flier with cheerleading.

  On the road with Charlotte Elite Volleyball.

  Senior year, 2005. My last home volleyball game at Providence High School.

  One of my favorite shoots from my days in NXT.

  Before I was the Queen, I was a goddess for the King of Kings at WrestleMania XXX.

  The Four Horsewomen: Driven to change the game.

  TLC 2015. Champn’ with my dad.

  My dad won the 1992 Royal Rumble match. He never thought I’d be in the ring in 2016 defending a WWE Championship.

  The Thelma to my Louise … my best friend … I wouldn’t be here without you.

  With Wendy at the WWE Hall of Fame … I’m the luckiest man alive!

  Another successful corporate event with my Legacy Talent agent Melinda. Don’t let her looks distract you—she’s the smartest person in the room!

  WrestleMania: The first WWE Women’s Champion. I didn’t choose this path. It chose me.

  NOTES

  1. HISTORY, FATE, AND DESTINY

  1 Paul Levesque: “I grew up in New Hampshire, about an hour outside of Boston. The northeastern United States was always WWE territory. We had cable television in our house, so I watched NWA, AWA, the Von Erichs in Texas, anything I could get my hands on. As a kid, Saturday mornings consisted of me watching wrestling from all over the country. From the moment I saw it, all I wanted to do was be in that ring. Ric was an enormous part of that.”

  2 Shawn Michaels: “For me, everything goes back to being a child in Texas and seeing Ric on TV during Southwest Championship Wrestling. From the second I saw him, I wanted to be just like him. Now I had the chance to show him how much he’s meant to me. I knew exactly what we needed to do.”

  3 Shawn Michaels: “Some people thought the Old Yeller reference during our interview segment was me taking a shot at Ric’s age. I wasn’t exactly a spring chicken either. Old Yeller is about loving something so much that you had to kill it, like a mercy killing, to put it out of its misery. Someone was in a position to do something that was so hard to do, but they knew it was the right thing to do.”

  2. ENTERING IMMORTALITY

  1 Shawn Michaels: “I woke up one night at 2:00 in the morning. I just started writing everything down that came to me about the match. I started crying literally on the paper. I knew if we did it this way it was going to be epic. I also knew how hard it was for Ric to let someone else call the match, and it’s one of the reasons that match means so much to me.”

  2 Paul Levesque: “There were times along the way where Ric was the only guy in the room who didn’t know he was Ric Flair. He did things that he thought were the best things to help business, because he cared, but they weren’t the best things for himself. You go through our locker room and so many guys, myself included, were there because they wanted to be just like Ric. I wanted him to know how much he means to all of us. I said it at the Hall of Fame, and I meant it: Ric Flair was, is, and always will be the man.”

  3 Stone Cold Steve Austin: “You say professional wrestling to me, the first name that comes to my mind is the ‘Nature Boy’ Ric Flair. He’s given his entire life to this business and paved the way for so many people, including myself. He’s the greatest world champion in the history of the business.”

  4 Ricky Steamboat: “Around 1:00 a.m., there’s a knock on my door. I looked out my window and saw Ric standing there in the rain. I opened the door and saw him holding four or five of his robes in one hand and a gym bag in the other. Right then, I knew this argument was different. Leslie was done for good.”

  3. TO BE THE MAN, YOU GOTTA BEAT THE MAN

  1 Shawn Michaels: “The one demand I had made on him before the match was, ‘You don’t say anything! I know you’ve been a ring general your whole life, but not tonight. You don’t speak. Not one word. Let’s do it.’ That was a big pill for him to swallow, and he did it for me. When the stage was the largest and the lights were shining their brightest. It’s one of the reasons that match will always mean so much to me.”

  2 Shawn Michaels: “There’s a part of you that thinks back to your childhood. Ric was such a big part of that. Then, fast-forward twenty-five years, and we’re very close friends. This was so important to him. It was so important to me. During my career, sometimes I’d get obsessed with the details of my WrestleMania matches to the point it became unhealthy. The emotions between us for those three months and the match at WrestleMania were real. They were some of the most real emotions I’ve felt in my life. I kissed Ric at the end of the match. I told him I loved him and that I hoped the match was everything he wanted it to be.”

  3 Charles Robinson: “To be chosen to be the referee for this match was the biggest honor of my career. When we went into the finish sequence, before Shawn landed the Super Kick, I was already in tears. I counted three and covered my face. I rolled out of the ring and walked back to the locker room. It was an amazing match and an incredible moment in history.”

  4 Shawn Michaels: “I wanted Ric to know how much he means to me and that he has a friend for life in me. I asked jewelers I know if they could do this for me with the date and his famous catchphrase. The only thing they couldn’t get on there was the 24 in roman numerals. The watch is only so big. When I gave it to him, I didn’t think everyone would be waiting for us in the back.”

  5. WHAT A YEAR

  1 Chris Jericho: “The match was supposed to be me versus Mickey Rourke at WrestleMania. Vince sent me on a mission to go on Larry King Live and bas
ically be such a bad guy and say things to Mickey that were so disrespectful that he’d agree to do the match right there. Mickey wanted to do the match. His representation did not want him to do it. As the show went on, you could see Mickey get visibly annoyed at my remarks.”

  2 Ricky Steamboat: “I’m very grateful that people feel the trilogy of matches Ric and I had in the late ’80s in WCW are some of the greatest of all time. I wish people could’ve seen the matches we had in Greensboro, Charlotte, Greenville, and places like that a decade before. I can’t count how many matches we had that were better than those.”

  6. AN OFFER I COULDN’T REFUSE

  1 Shawn Michaels: “I know that Ric struggled with the decision on whether or not to go to TNA. I know for two reasons: one, because I know Ric as a person; two, he called me several times to talk about it. Ric’s happiness and peace revolved around being inside that ring. He wanted me to tell him that going there was okay. I wasn’t going to deny him of that. I told him as his friend that I hoped at some point he could find that peace somewhere else. To me, our match in Orlando will always be his last match.”

  8. A BEAUTIFUL LIFE

  1 Ric: “The question was, could Beth have a normal pregnancy? The egg would grow in the fallopian tube and could not sustain itself. The egg would eventually burst, and she’d start bleeding internally. Back then, there were not tests to see if you had a tubal pregnancy. You had symptoms, like feeling like you were going to faint, throwing up, and bleeding. My dad had an OB-GYN practice in Minnesota and helped her during this time. His partner performed a surgery on her to repair her tube, and she was told it had only a 10 percent chance of being successful. After the surgery, we waited several months before being able to try to become pregnant again. She went through a lot.”

  2 Ric: “I was on the road so much back then that Beth would travel with me. I was coming back from Japan, so she met me in Hawaii. We found out she was pregnant again. We were so happy, we started to celebrate. Suddenly, she started to get familiar feelings and thought it might be another tubal. She was right. The doctor wanted her to stay in Hawaii for surgery to remove it. We were so upset. Against doctor’s orders, she flew home with her friends to Charlotte to see her doctor. By the time she landed, she felt dizzy, started throwing up, and was bleeding. I came home immediately. Her doctor rushed her into surgery to save the tube. After she recovered, he told her the small chances of having a normal pregnancy were getting smaller. That was the first time she started to lose hope.”

  3 Ric: “Beth was in labor. I got very emotional and ended up choking. I went into the bathroom. Beth told the doctors to make sure I was okay, but they refused to leave her. She continued to push, and the baby was delivered. The doctor and his team took the baby and immediately brought him behind a curtain. I didn’t know what was going on because I was still choking. The delivery team said, ‘It’s okay, We’ll be right there.’ It turned out, Reid’s umbilical cord was wrapped around his neck.”

  4 Ric: “We knew Ashley was not going to stay still for the whole summer. She eventually found a way to run while in that body cast. Can you believe that? In no time she was running as fast as Reid. She kept all of us on our toes. It drove Beth and me nuts.”

  5 Ric: “I was away from Megan and David so much during my first marriage to Leslie. I learned that you can’t make up for lost time. That’s why I was so glad I was in a position with WCW to take weekends off and be able to spend so much time with Ashley and Reid. I thanked God for it then, and looking back now, I cherish those times even more.”

  6 Ric: “The Horsemen were so close back then. Everything we talked about on television—the jets, the limousines, the all-night parties—they were all true. One of the reasons it worked was because we were so close. From that, my family and Arn’s family grew up together. It was wonderful.”

  7 Ric: “I’ve always liked Leon [Vader], but the big man didn’t want to lose that night. That match was so physical, it was like a war from the old days of our business. He hit me. I hit him back just as hard and vice versa. That intensity made the match look even better.”

  9. A BLESSING AND A CURSE

  1 Coach Suzie Sanocki: “To put the Levels during that time into perspective, a gymnast couldn’t move up to another level unless she was able to perform certain moves. Level 9 is two levels below what you see on television when you watch the Olympics.”

  2 Coach Suzie Sanocki: “Ric and Beth were so involved. We’d get to an airport and Ric would quietly come up to me and put $500 cash in my hand and say, ‘Please take everyone out to dinner tonight.’ He never wanted anyone to know that. I don’t know if Ashley ever knew her dad always did that for the team. If you didn’t know who Ashley’s father was, you’d have no idea of that based on how Ashley behaved.”

  3 Coach Suzie Sanocki: “Ashley was a wonderful kid with a great personality. She was super tenacious when it came to getting something right and was an excellent teammate. Since she was getting so tall, gymnastics became more difficult. In twenty-one years of coaching, Ashley’s determination and athleticism still stand out.”

  4 Coach Kevin Brubaker: “The best cheerleaders are often ex-gymnasts. Ashley had a high level of what we call ‘acrosense,’ which is how you move in the air. Teal Squad is our highest-level team. Ashley reached a level in two years that most people don’t reach until they’re doing this for ten or twelve years.”

  5 Coach Kevin Brubaker: “Ashley was not worried that she had her teeth knocked out; she wanted to make sure no one else was hurt. We went with her parents to the dentist that night so she could have surgery. She wanted to return to practice the next day. When we told her she had to wait a few weeks to be cleared, that seemed to be more painful for her.”

  6 Ric: “Ashley’s always had a high tolerance for pain. If she turned her foot, the coach would have her sit out and ice it. She couldn’t stand having to be on the bench while practice was going on. She wanted to get back out there right away.”

  7 Coach Kevin Brubaker: “Ric wanted to make sure everyone was okay. He always treated us so well. He brought the whole team and staff to WCW Monday Nitro when they came to town, would have flowers given to all the girls. He even helped pay for uniforms and travel when certain people on the team had difficulty affording it. The number of pictures and autographs he’d stay for at competitions was unbelievable. Ric and Beth were so appreciative of our work.”

  8 Ric: “That was a great segment. We were so proud of Reid. He was a little nervous, but he did great. I know he loved that his uncle Arn was right behind him. For all the problems Eric [Bischoff] and I had during my time in WCW, he always treated my family very well.”

  10. ADVERSITY COMES IN MANY FORMS

  1 Ric: “I went back because of the kids. When I was home during my lawsuit with WCW, and during this time, after WCW closed, things changed between Beth and me at home. I wanted to try to make it work for the kids.”

  2 Ric: “When Beth and I were married, she’d tell me I was too much of a friend to the kids and not enough of a father. I knew they were working hard, and when I didn’t think they were working hard, I let them know. That day I let Ashley know. What she didn’t know was that I was at home ready to get her if she called me.”

  3 Brittany Zahn Arnold: “Ashley’s one of the most athletic people I’ve ever been around. In comparison to the rest of us, volleyball was new to her. For Ashley to be as good as she was, playing at that level in the amount of time she was playing volleyball, it was incredible.”

  4 Brittany Zahn Arnold: “One of the things everyone respected about Ashley was that she didn’t want to be known as Ric Flair’s daughter. She wanted to be known as Ashley. She didn’t talk about her dad’s wrestling career, the house she lived in, the cars they had, or trips she took. She was dedicated to being a great athlete and teammate.”

  5 Ric: “WCW closing was one of the happiest days of my life. I was sad for people who lost their jobs, but the company was so dysfunctional and became so
unbearable that I said good riddance long before WWE acquired it. The only way I survived was by being at the hotel bar with ‘Mean’ Gene and Arn drinking dirty martinis. The match with Steve [Sting] was not our best. He came off surgery, and I hadn’t been in the ring in months. I performed with a T-shirt on. I didn’t want to have a match, but Shane McMahon asked me. If I had to perform in a match, I’m glad it was with Steve and that we closed out the final program together.”

  6 Ric: “I almost appeared on WWE TV in 1997. I had Reid with me in a limo. I was on the phone with Jim Cornette, and the limo was circling the Greensboro Coliseum before a WWE pay-per-view event. Reid just won the AAU wrestling nationals. We were going to sit in the front row. Jim Ross was going to announce on the air that WWE was going to interview ‘a great wrestling champion’ and then walk over and speak to Reid on camera. WWE’s attorney decided it was too risky, because I was still under contract to Turner. [Laughs] After WCW closed, I waited all summer for that phone to ring. ‘Are they going to call? Are they going to call?’ Jim called me and said, ‘Ric, we’d like you to be part of this company.’ I was told I wouldn’t be wrestling but rather be an authority figure on TV. My return was official. I couldn’t wait.”