Vince McMahon was notorious for his harsh methods when in charge of WWE, something Ric Flair found out the hard way on his very first day!
The former WWE Chairman and CEO retired on 22 July but before this, he was well-versed in utilising serious measures against his personnel. Between suspending talent over the most minuscule of incidents and firing pools of WWE Superstars at a time in the middle of a pandemic, he was far from the world’s best boss.
Ric Flair discovered this early in his WWE career, recalling an incident on his To Be The Man podcast that saw him fined $500 on his very first day in WWE:
“No, I never got there till – I can’t remember, it was Dayton TV, was my first night there. I met Sherri Martel at the hotel and we stayed out, drank all night and I was five minutes late for TV [on] my first day and my first day at TV, he called me aside and said, ‘That’s 500 bucks. This isn’t WCW. You’re here on time’.”
Ric Flair signed with the then-World Wrestling Federation in August 1991, bringing the Big Gold Belt with him and deeming himself ‘The Real Worlds Champion’. He was officially still the WCW World Heavyweight Champion for a while during this period, having been in a dispute with WCW President Jim Herd.
‘The Nature Boy’ spent just two years with the company before departing in 1993, citing a disagreement with Vince McMahon over his positioning. An eight-year return to WCW saw Flair once again in the main event scene, though he’s been associated with WWE ever since the organisation was bought out.
He’s been a hot topic of conversation this year, having wrestled his divisive last match at the end of July that saw Ric Flair bleed profusely. Nonetheless, he teamed with Andrade El Idolo in a winning effort over Jeff Jarrett and Jay Lethal.