Ric Flair opens up about having nervous breakdowns throughout his career.
The two-time WWE Hall of Famer recently sat down with Theo Von for a two-hour interview on This Past Weekend. During their conversation, Flair shared about the mental health struggles he faced during his days as an active competitor.
“I tell ya, I’ve had 17 nervous breakdowns,” Flair said. “No shit. I was just so exhausted. One night I wrestled for an hour in Orlando at the old Eddie Graham Sports Arena, which is a tin building. 104 degrees and I wrestled Butch Reed. My heart was racing like hell so I called my dad on a pay phone and he was in Minneapolis. ‘Dad, my heart’s racing.’ He said, ‘When was the last time you went to bed?’ I didn’t want to answer. ‘I don’t know, I went to bed last night.’ ‘What time?’ So I never went to bed, right?
“I had to go to Tokyo the next day. Got on the plane going, ‘God, I can’t do this.’ So I drank all the way to Narita. Drank 14 hours. Maybe slept two hours but I woke up and kept drinking. This is like ’83 or ’84. Landed in Narita. Back then we had the paper ticket and I said, ‘I just can’t do this.’ I could hear Baba’s wife, ‘Flair-san.’ I walked over to the guy and said, ‘When’s the next flight back in the United States? I need to get back to Charlotte.’ He said, ‘We’ve got one for Seattle leaving in 20 minutes.’ Back then we didn’t have the deal with the bags. I took the paper ticket, put it back. Flew from Narita to Seattle, Seattle to Chicago, Chicago to Charlotte.”
Ric Flair says he flew back to the U.S. and made it through the first flight by talking to a man sitting next to him.
“To make a long story short, I sat down next to this guy on the plane going from Narita to Seattle,” he recalled. “I go, ‘Do you mind if I talk to you?’ He said, ‘No, why?’ I said, ‘I’m having a nervous breakdown. I need someone to talk to.’ ‘Really?’ ‘Yep, I’m having a nervous breakdown.’ So we talked all the way to Seattle, drank all the way to Seattle. Then I slept to Chicago, got on another plane and landed in Charlotte. The promotor was there, Jimmy Crockett. He said, ‘You gotta go back. You’re advertised.’ We got back on the plane. Never even left the airport. Went all the way back to Tokyo, drinking again.
“I was having a full-fledged nervous breakdown. We got there, went to the arena, and wrestled an hour and I broke a sweat and started all over again. But the guy from Seattle, we exchanged addresses. He sent me a Christmas card for 10 years. He said, ‘I didn’t know how famous you were. Really enjoyed talking to you. You were an interesting guy.'” [Laughs]
Flair joked that he waited until the plane took off to engage with the man about having a nervous breakdown so that he wouldn’t run off. He then opened up about his battle with agoraphobia, which is the fear of places and situations that might cause panic, helplessness, or embarrassment.
“You know what agoraphobia is, where you have to be close to something? You can’t be alone, you can’t walk outside of your house,” Flair said. “I had it for about six months. I couldn’t get myself to leave and drive to the airport. It’s horrible. Because I was living a crazy lifestyle. It was so much drinking and partying. I didn’t sleep. The one thing I did do, which is kind of legendary in our business, is regardless of what I did to myself, I worked out every day. Sometimes I pushed myself too hard and that would cause that.”
On top of all that, Flair shared that he struggled with having to cut his hair in the early ’90s while in WCW.
“Then I really lost my mind when I cut my hair,” Flair recalled. “Jim Herd, [wanting to make me] Spartacus, put a hearing on. I’m Ric Flair, motherf*cker. When I cut my hair and walked through the Charlotte airport, nobody knew who I was. I wanted to absolutely walk in the bathroom and kill myself. Normally I’m walking around, ‘Hey, Ric,’ combing my hair and all that. I had the surfer Joe haircut. Give me a break. I started a trend with it, I still can’t believe I gave into them. I can remember the girl’s name. Mary Riley, she said, ‘Are you sure you want to do this?’ I said, ‘No, I don’t want to do this but I almost have to keep my job.’ But I was in shock. That alone was a nervous breakdown.”
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If you use any quotes from this article, please credit This Past Weekend with a h/t to WrestleZone for the transcription.
