ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1997, Roanoke Times
DATE: Monday, March 31, 1997 TAG: 9704010012
SECTION: EXTRA PAGE: 1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: DANIEL UTHMAN THE ROANOKE TIMES
THE ``Dirtiest player in the game'' used to sing in his high school choir.
The man they call ``Every woman's dream and every man's nightmare'' is a happily married father of four.
His name is Richard Morgan Fliehr. He is 48 years old. To Americans, especially those in the southeast, he is Ric Flair. And he is ageless.
After embarking on a professional wrestling career 25 years ago, Flair still is at the top of his game and height of popularity. He'll be in town tonight when World Championship Wrestling, currently the No.1 wrestling promotion in the United States, brings its TNT Monday Nitro telecast to the Roanoke Civic Center coliseum. Flair won't actually be wrestling, but he will make an appearance at the match.
``I must have had a hundred one-hour draws in that town,'' Flair said last week, whisking away from Charlotte-Douglas International Airport in one of his several Mercedes sedans. ``I was there the first time the civic center sold out. I wrestled Blackjack Mulligan in the main event. That was 1978. It was hotter than a pistol.''
Asked whether he won the match, Flair said, ``I doubt it. I was probably lucky to survive.''
You could call Flair a survivor - anybody who's been flipping over ring posts for two and a half decades would qualify - but that would be selling him short. For his entire adult life, he has ``styled and profiled'' well beyond the pro wrestling business. He has been found on the benches of the University of Florida football team and the Wake Forest basketball team. He is close friends with former South Carolina Gov. Carroll Campbell. Former President George Bush asked him to join him on his campaign swing through North Carolina in 1988.
But sharing the limelight with famous people isn't what made Ric Flair a fan favorite even when he's played a bad guy, or ``heel.''
``With Flair, people like him regardless,'' said Mike Mooneyham, a newspaperman in Charleston, S.C., and the world's foremost expert on the ``Nature Boy.'' ``It's his connection with the fans. You can see him in a bar, in a shopping mall, anywhere.''
The last time he was in Roanoke last summer, Flair was spotted on the sidewalk in front of the old Ward's Rock Cafe. Patrons on the roof flashed him the four-finger sign of Flair's running mates, the Four Horsemen, and let out a yelping ``Whoooo!'', his signature call. When he steps in the ring, the people really go nuts.
Last Monday at an appearance at a match in Duluth, Minn., he cleaned house when a rival band of goons known as the ``Dungeon of Doom'' jumped one of Flair's partners, the ``Canadian Crippler'' Chris Benoit.
Although Flair didn't fully tangle with the ``Doom goons,'' he did treat them to a mix of his trademark strutting and a variety of kicks to the extreme lower abdomen. It was Flair's first action since sustaining a severe shoulder injury last September and his antics whipped the Duluth crowd into its most fevered pitch of the night.
``I get that pop just about anywhere, much to the chagrin of the promotion,'' Flair said. ``I've found ways to be creative even when the story line's not there.
``They used to say you have four minutes of a TV show to show why you were different. I always kept that in mind.''
Ric Flair was born in Minnesota and attended high school at Wayland Academy, a private school in Beaver Dam, Wisc. He was a three-sport athlete, most valuable player of the football and wrestling teams and a two-time Wisconsin private school champion in the 180-pound weight class. He also was in the choir.
``I wasn't in the choir,'' he insisted, before being told the yearbook said he was. ``Oh, I probably was in the choir. Not because I had a good voice or anything.''
After being recruited by most Big Ten schools as a lineman, he signed with Minnesota. He spent two years there before he hooked up with a classmate, Greg Gagne, and began working toward a pro wrestling career. Gagne's father, Verne, ran a pro wrestling camp that Flair attended in 1972. He lived with former World Wrestling Federation strongman Ken Patera there.
Flair wrestled his first match in 1973 and was the National Wrestling Alliance rookie of the year in 1975. Later that year, he was in a plane crash near Wilmington, N.C., that broke his back in three places and took two inches off his height. He's about six feet tall.
Doctors told him he would be crippled by the age of 30 if he continued his career. But by 1981, he had returned to become world heavyweight champion - a title he has claimed for himself 12 times since. ``He had champ marked all over him,'' Mooneyham said. ``He had that real haughty attitude; sort of like a wrestling version of Muhammed Ali.''
Even Ali slowed down, however, and many have speculated that Flair won't be the same after the recent shoulder surgery, which was done by Dr. James Andrews of Birmingham, Ala., an orthopedist who has operated on Bo Jackson, Deion Sanders and many other front-line professional athletes.
Flair's current layoff, which has kept him from wrestling for the longest time of his career since the plane crash, will end May 1.
``It's been tough for me,'' he said, ``but I'm so relieved to get it fixed. I feel better than I've felt in 15 years.''
WCW doesn't do the barnstorming it used to do, so Flair has more time off. When the company calls, they often want him to fly across the country doing promotional work. Recently, the Philadelphia Spectrum sold 7,000 tickets one morning when Flair showed up to shake hands and sign autographs. Most wrestling house shows in the 1990s haven't had that many people in attendance unless they are a pay-per-view event.
People come out, however, when Flair's in town. They see his bushy blond mane, his fingers covered with rings, his expensive suits with shirt collars spread wide. Flair's leathery skin makes him look like he's done some hard living, and it's true, but he's always done some good living.
They want to see the man who ``Dances all night,'' who rides in limousines, uncorking champagne and not having enough room on his arms for all the women who adore him.
Little do they know that when he leaves their town he's bound on a jet plane for his three-story home in Charlotte where his loving family awaits. Flair figures he has about 21/2 more years of active ring wrestling in his body. After that, he'll devote his time to his fitness center business (he owns six Gold's Gyms from Raleigh to Charlotte, N.C.) and to helping run his family with his wife of 13 years, Beth.
Flair has four children, two from a previous marriage. Megan, 23 and a 1996 graduate of Augsburg (Minn.) College, and David, 17, live in Minnesota. Ashley, 10, and Reid, 8, live with Ric and Beth in Charlotte and attend Providence Day School. Ashley is a gymnast and Reid is one of the top eight-year-old amatuer wrestlers in North Carolina.
Back in the 1980s, when he wrestled 350 matches a year, Flair didn't have much time to spend with his family, but it is his priority now.
``I finally put my nose to the grindstone,'' Flair said as he drove away from the Gold's Gym he owns at Charlotte's SouthPark Mall. ``I'm totally immersed in my family.''
Although he hasn't been allowed to slap people around the ring since September, that doesn't mean he hasn't been able to slap them around with his mouth. As sharp as he is with his figure-four leglock, he is sharpest with his tongue.
Flair has brought memorable phrases like, ``To beat the man, you've got to beat the man!'' and ``Whether you like it, or you don't like it, learn to love it!'' to the American verbiage. All are said with his eyes bugging, hair bouncing and voice roaring.
Flair will resume his verbal attacks/braggadocio before a sellout crowd Monday night at the civic center.
``We've sold out every building in the territory, from Roanoke to Richmond to Savannah,'' he said. ``Roanoke was a great town for us. We started out in the Starland Arena. Then when the coliseum went up, we got in there as fast as we could.''
Flair has been cheered in Roanoke and every other venue ever since, even when he was the ultimate bad guy. It's something that no other wrestler has enjoyed, not even Hulk Hogan, Flair's chief rival in the all-time wrestling popularity contest. Hogan was getting booed out of arenas last year because his character had become so stale. WCW asked him to become a heel to rejuvenate interest. That's never happened to Flair.
``It's tough not to keep me in a feature role,'' he said. ``Guys identify with the playboy type of thing.''
Flair interupted the interview briefly to stop at a gas station. He continued talking while the pump was running and then resumed his drive home. He had dropped Beth and Ashley off at the airport so they could fly to Houston and be with Beth's parents for Easter. Ric was on his way to pick up Reid and take him to St.Louis for a youth wrestling tournament. Then father and son were off to Chicago for a Blackhawks hockey game on Friday night.
Today, it's on to Roanoke, where his other, bigger family awaits.
LENGTH: Long : 161 lines ILLUSTRATION: PHOTO: 1. Ric Flair has been cheered in every city where he hasby CNBappeared, even when he was the ultimate bad guy. It's something that
no other wrestler has enjoyed. 2. He's wrestled in Roanoke on
numerous occasions, including against Rick Steamboat (green trunks)
in 1989 (right). color.