During his pro wrestling career, Ric Flair oozed cockiness and arrogance, and had the heavyweight championship belt to back it up his bluster.
There was the “Nature Boy,” on cable television during “Georgia Championship Wrestling,” and later with the WWE, strutting in his immaculately tailored suits and flashy, expensive robes as he prepared to bring down his next opponent.
Flair told wrestling fans that he was a “stylin’, profilin’, limousine-riding, jet-flying, kiss-stealing, wheelin’ ’n’ dealin’ son of a gun, punctuating interviews with his trademark “Woooo!” yelp.
“I thrived on the attention to detail that enhanced my character,” Flair writes in a collaborative effort with his daughter, current WWE star Charlotte. “That mentality served me well in my career; sometimes a little too well.”
Be prepared for a different side of Ric Flair. In Second Nature: The Legacy of Ric Flair and the Rise of Charlotte (St. Martin’s Press; hardback; $26.99; 368 pages), readers will be treated to an introspective, no-invective, very objective and highly reflective look at his life and career, the mistakes he made and a ton of regrets.
Even Flair had trouble sorting out when the time was right to finally step out of character and return to being Richard Morgan Fliehr, who is now 68. But it hasn’t been easy, and an ESPN “30 for 30” segment set for Tuesday will air plenty of dirty laundry — fame, broken marriages, drinking, his recent health issues, financial woes, the death of his son and the insecurity of knowing that he might not have been the best family man. Flair addresses that in Second Nature, too.
There was the “Nature Boy,” on cable television during “Georgia Championship Wrestling,” and later with the WWE, strutting in his immaculately tailored suits and flashy, expensive robes as he prepared to bring down his next opponent.
Flair told wrestling fans that he was a “stylin’, profilin’, limousine-riding, jet-flying, kiss-stealing, wheelin’ ’n’ dealin’ son of a gun, punctuating interviews with his trademark “Woooo!” yelp.
“I thrived on the attention to detail that enhanced my character,” Flair writes in a collaborative effort with his daughter, current WWE star Charlotte. “That mentality served me well in my career; sometimes a little too well.”
Be prepared for a different side of Ric Flair. In Second Nature: The Legacy of Ric Flair and the Rise of Charlotte (St. Martin’s Press; hardback; $26.99; 368 pages), readers will be treated to an introspective, no-invective, very objective and highly reflective look at his life and career, the mistakes he made and a ton of regrets.
Even Flair had trouble sorting out when the time was right to finally step out of character and return to being Richard Morgan Fliehr, who is now 68. But it hasn’t been easy, and an ESPN “30 for 30” segment set for Tuesday will air plenty of dirty laundry — fame, broken marriages, drinking, his recent health issues, financial woes, the death of his son and the insecurity of knowing that he might not have been the best family man. Flair addresses that in Second Nature, too.
What has buoyed him has been the success of his daughter Ashley, now known professionally as Charlotte. Both father and daughter are candid in this book, partitioned nicely into two distinct sections with the help of author Brian Shields. Charlotte, now 31, knew that she was going to have to break the perception that any success she experienced would be because of her ties to her famous father. Second Nature, which is a marvelous pun on Flair’s coming to grips with his career out of the ring and Charlotte’s life as a second generation wrestler, gives the reader a personal, inside look at the business and allows both to tell stories.
I have always believed, and still do, that pro wrestlers are the best storytellers. All those road trips create memories that remain fresh. Wrestling fans are legion, too. They want to hear stories, because they already know that at its heart, pro wrestling is a blue-collar version of a morality play.
“Wrestling has all the grace and simplicity of a folk ballad, but none of the significance,” said Edward J. Golden Jr., who in the 1970s was the director of Baltimore’s Center Stage theatrical group. “Wrestling’s appeal is a world beyond reason, a purely instinctive world and it succeeds beautifully.”
And that appeal succeeds whether it is taking place at a massive WrestleMania pay-per-view event or at a small auditorium. Back in the mid-1980s, I watched Flair wrestle Florida favorite Wahoo McDaniel in an auditorium at Indian River Community College in Fort Pierce. Despite the hokey-looking venue — instead of “walking the aisle,” wrestlers emerged from behind a curtain — Flair treated his match seriously, doing his pratfalls, tumbling backward into the turnbuckle and resorting to his usual bag of dirty tricks.
Great theater and an hour-long match. Priceless. Flair writes that McDaniel “changed my life,” because of his toughness.
“He had a vasectomy at 4:00 and wrestled me the same night at 8:00,” Flair writes. “I did not appreciate what that meant until I had my own vasectomy years later.”
Now that’s intimate.
The first 146 pages of Second Nature is all Flair. “I was so proud that when I became the Nature Boy, I was one of the few performers who didn’t need to reinvent himself and come back under a different persona,” he writes. “There were times when I was a ‘bad guy’ and times I was a ‘good guy,’ but I was always the Nature Boy.”
He writes with raw emotion and passion about his inductions into the WWE Hall of Fame and his career-ending match against Shawn Michaels. He speaks about trips on the road, his battles with self-confidence and anxiety and how to cope with “real life” when the ring lights dim for the night.
“In this business, you feed off the crowd,” he writes. “But when you step through the other side of the curtain and the show’s over, your ‘real life’ begins.
“… We make choices. There are some of our brothers and sisters who went into their hotel rooms and never came out.”
The second half of the book belongs to Charlotte. Like her father, she is haunted by the 2013 death of Reid Fliehr but has used it as a motivating factor. “Reid pushed me to pursue a WWE career, and now I’m living his dream,” she writes.
Growing up Ashley was a pleasant experience, as Charlotte excelled in gymnastics, cheerleading and volleyball and lived a life of luxury at her parents’ home in the city that bears her professional name. While her father bemoans his lack of family interaction because of his commitments on the road, Charlotte remembers it differently.
“For all the ‘stylin’ and profilin’’ he was famous for, when my father walked through our door, all he wanted to do was spend time with his family,” she writes. “He wanted us to have the best of everything and anything we wanted.”
Charlotte goes into great detail about her childhood and her athletic success. She was thrown for a loop when her parents divorced, and an abusive relationship to her boyfriend (and subsequent husband) Riki Johnson severely played havoc with her self-esteem. She was able to get out of that relationship and move on.
And while she was estranged from her father for a while, Charlotte writes that the WrestleMania that signified the end of Flair’s career “reunited him with me and my siblings, and me with them.”
Going into pro wrestling, though, was something she never expected to do.
“I felt it took a vivid imagination to see me as a WWE Diva,” she writes.
She went into training with the expectation that there would not be a free ride, that whatever she achieved would have to be earned.
“I had a high mountain to climb. I had to prove that I belonged,” she writes. “I had to earn people’s respect.”
The death of Reid in 2013 rocked both Flair and Charlotte, and their anguish is palpable in Second Nature. To lose a child or sibling is devastating, and both father and daughter wrote emotional tributes to him to close out the book.
Second Nature is not your typical wrestling book, but it is a great literary tag team event. Neither Flair nor Charlotte ever asked for any quarter, and they certainly never gave any. Both have bared their souls in a highly personal way, but when the bell rings, they are ready to go.
I have always believed, and still do, that pro wrestlers are the best storytellers. All those road trips create memories that remain fresh. Wrestling fans are legion, too. They want to hear stories, because they already know that at its heart, pro wrestling is a blue-collar version of a morality play.
“Wrestling has all the grace and simplicity of a folk ballad, but none of the significance,” said Edward J. Golden Jr., who in the 1970s was the director of Baltimore’s Center Stage theatrical group. “Wrestling’s appeal is a world beyond reason, a purely instinctive world and it succeeds beautifully.”
And that appeal succeeds whether it is taking place at a massive WrestleMania pay-per-view event or at a small auditorium. Back in the mid-1980s, I watched Flair wrestle Florida favorite Wahoo McDaniel in an auditorium at Indian River Community College in Fort Pierce. Despite the hokey-looking venue — instead of “walking the aisle,” wrestlers emerged from behind a curtain — Flair treated his match seriously, doing his pratfalls, tumbling backward into the turnbuckle and resorting to his usual bag of dirty tricks.
Great theater and an hour-long match. Priceless. Flair writes that McDaniel “changed my life,” because of his toughness.
“He had a vasectomy at 4:00 and wrestled me the same night at 8:00,” Flair writes. “I did not appreciate what that meant until I had my own vasectomy years later.”
Now that’s intimate.
The first 146 pages of Second Nature is all Flair. “I was so proud that when I became the Nature Boy, I was one of the few performers who didn’t need to reinvent himself and come back under a different persona,” he writes. “There were times when I was a ‘bad guy’ and times I was a ‘good guy,’ but I was always the Nature Boy.”
He writes with raw emotion and passion about his inductions into the WWE Hall of Fame and his career-ending match against Shawn Michaels. He speaks about trips on the road, his battles with self-confidence and anxiety and how to cope with “real life” when the ring lights dim for the night.
“In this business, you feed off the crowd,” he writes. “But when you step through the other side of the curtain and the show’s over, your ‘real life’ begins.
“… We make choices. There are some of our brothers and sisters who went into their hotel rooms and never came out.”
The second half of the book belongs to Charlotte. Like her father, she is haunted by the 2013 death of Reid Fliehr but has used it as a motivating factor. “Reid pushed me to pursue a WWE career, and now I’m living his dream,” she writes.
Growing up Ashley was a pleasant experience, as Charlotte excelled in gymnastics, cheerleading and volleyball and lived a life of luxury at her parents’ home in the city that bears her professional name. While her father bemoans his lack of family interaction because of his commitments on the road, Charlotte remembers it differently.
“For all the ‘stylin’ and profilin’’ he was famous for, when my father walked through our door, all he wanted to do was spend time with his family,” she writes. “He wanted us to have the best of everything and anything we wanted.”
Charlotte goes into great detail about her childhood and her athletic success. She was thrown for a loop when her parents divorced, and an abusive relationship to her boyfriend (and subsequent husband) Riki Johnson severely played havoc with her self-esteem. She was able to get out of that relationship and move on.
And while she was estranged from her father for a while, Charlotte writes that the WrestleMania that signified the end of Flair’s career “reunited him with me and my siblings, and me with them.”
Going into pro wrestling, though, was something she never expected to do.
“I felt it took a vivid imagination to see me as a WWE Diva,” she writes.
She went into training with the expectation that there would not be a free ride, that whatever she achieved would have to be earned.
“I had a high mountain to climb. I had to prove that I belonged,” she writes. “I had to earn people’s respect.”
The death of Reid in 2013 rocked both Flair and Charlotte, and their anguish is palpable in Second Nature. To lose a child or sibling is devastating, and both father and daughter wrote emotional tributes to him to close out the book.
Second Nature is not your typical wrestling book, but it is a great literary tag team event. Neither Flair nor Charlotte ever asked for any quarter, and they certainly never gave any. Both have bared their souls in a highly personal way, but when the bell rings, they are ready to go.
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