Ric Flair‘s Last Match offered plenty of scary moments for fans as they witnessed the final match of The Nature Boy during Starrcast weekend.
Flair, 73, returned to the ring on July 31; in his first match since 2011, he teamed up with Andrade El Idolo to face Jay Lethal and Jeff Jarrett. Heading into the bout, fans and critics alike raised concerns about Flair’s health, given some of the issues he has dealt with in the past. As it turned out, his health was a factor in his last match.
On the latest edition of the To Be The Man podcast, Flair spoke to Conrad Thompson about passing out two times during the contest. He described how he was dehydrated because he was trying to make weight prior to the bout.
“I don’t think people realize that I passed out twice,” Flair said. “What happened was my regimentation for training was so strict that I kept my weight on. I wanted my perfect weight to be like 220 going in. And so the last day and a half, aside from all the work that we had for me to do. I just didn’t hydrate because I had my mind that I had to weigh 219. So anyway, I went to the ring at about 217 pounds. And what happened during the body of the match, I just became dehydrated. And I actually passed out while I was standing on the apron. I looked at Jay [Lethal], which started the whole wheel of motion. I said, ‘man, I think I’m getting sick,’ because I was getting lightheaded. It had nothing to do with my heart or nothing to do with my intestines; I was just getting lightheaded. And I’m sure a lot of it was nerves as well.”
“The Nature Boy” then noted that he missed about 10 seconds of the match when he passed out, and because he didn’t know where they were in the bout, he rolled to the outside. The legend made it clear that he didn’t want to scare anybody, but it felt like the best way to slow down the action.
“So I think Jay said we gotta move this along when that isn’t what I meant, but to the point where Manny [Andrade] came over, said your turn, sir. Your turn, sir. Your turn, sir. So I didn’t know where we were in the match because I had missed about 10 seconds of it. So I went outside. I think everybody just jumped the gun a little bit, and I saw where Booker T, who is a really close friend of mine, thought it was in bad taste to do this.
“That was strictly on the fly to get everybody to slow down. Because everybody just came all together at one time and we were far from the end of the match. So I just said to myself, how do I get everybody to slow down? It wasn’t anticipated. It wasn’t called; I just did it. And I apologize if I scared anybody, but I couldn’t think of any way to reorganize because we had everybody on the floor at one time, which was never the plan out like that.”
Flair went on to recall how Jarrett, out of concern, stopped him from taking a superplex. The WWE Hall of Famer recalled how he passed out for the second time during the guitar shot.
“So we eventually got everyone to slow down. And then Jeff [Jarrett], out of respect for me, lifted me to the top turnbuckle. Jay was gonna give me a superplex, which would have blown the roof off the joint, but he was worried about my health sincerely. He said, ‘we can’t do that, Naitch; we can’t do that again.’ So anyway, rather than look awkward. I came down with him. Jay came in; he gave me the suplex; we’re back rolling. When I finally gave Manny the tag, I crawled over to the side, which was the plan. I watched Manny make a whole big comeback was phenomenal. He hit Jay with an incredible finisher that I never had to take in my life and probably couldn’t. Only maybe a couple of guys can do it in the business.
“And so then the idea was to give me the tag, and I crawl. And the people got all that I thought they were really with it, right? So cover, one, save, right? And then along came the guitar right now. Well, when I was down. I passed out again. I just passed out, and Manny is going, ‘sir, you have to wake up. The brass knuckles, sir. You have to wake up.’ Then I woke up. I knew right where we were. We’re home. So twice during the match, I went completely black.”
Despite passing out twice, Flair noted that he felt much better after he rehydrated, which The Undertaker encouraged him to do by telling him to have some Gatorade after the bout.
READ MORE: Ric Flair: I’m ‘Very Happy’ With My Last Match, It Was Big For Me
What do you make of Ric Flair’s comments? Are you surprised to hear that he passed out twice during his final match? Let us know your thoughts by sounding off in the comments section below.
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