Two-time WWE Hall of Fame legend Ric Flair recently spoke with Sean “X-Pac” Waltman on the debut episode of his new podcast, “Pro Wrestling 4 Life,” for an in-depth interview covering all things pro wrestling.
During his appearance on the new program, “The Nature Boy” spoke with the fellow pro wrestling legend about how he has avoided drugs throughout the majority of his life due to his father, who was a doctor, putting the scare of God into him regarding that subject.
Featured below are some of the highlights of the new interview.
On how he has avoided drugs for the majority of his life: “The one thing you know about me, I don’t take anything. My only good thing I’ve ever done is stayed away from drugs. Even marijuana. I did one [smoked a joint] in college. I’m not saying I haven’t tried. In college, I tried it. One, and it gave me so much anxiety. Never again. Some people like that feeling of being loose and kind of out of control, I’ve never liked that. I mean, I’ve had Jack Brisco hold me down at a party, wrestle me to the ground and try to get me to do something. I said to Jack, ‘I’m not doing it.”
On his dad being a doctor and putting the fear of God into him regarding drugs: “My dad put the fear of God in me about doing drugs and stuff like that. What happened was – I’m not going to mention names – when I first started in Minneapolis with all the guys there, and you can go back and look at the territory. Everybody from Nick Bockwinkel to Ray Stevens to Dusty [Rhodes] to [Dick] Murdoch, Billy Graham. Everybody. When they found out my dad was a doctor — I missed a training camp. I had five guys asking me to get scripts from my dad. Of course, I went to my dad. He went, ‘yeah, I don’t mind doing one, but then the second time around he said, ‘what are these guys doing? That was supposed to last. I can’t do that anymore.’ He thought, ‘okay, I’ll do this for my son. It’s going to help him be — but my dad was very ethical, man. When the second time around [shakes head], absolutely not. But I didn’t get it either, you know what I mean? It’s the same thing, ‘if you can take one Bennie [Benzedrine] and get a little bit of a buzz, well, take two, you’ll get double the buzz, or take three.’ It’s like Ephedrine. That’s why they can’t sell the stuff anymore.”
On how he asked a nurse to get him a 12-pack of beer after surgery because morphine wasn’t helping: “Every time I’ve had surgery I can’t even do Morphine because it gives me anxiety, really bad. As a matter of fact, when I had my Rotator Cuff done, the second one in Birmingham, they took me off the Morphine and they put me on Demerol, which wasn’t doing much at all. I said to the nurse, ‘I’ll give you a hundred bucks if you’ll get me a 12-pack of beer. The nurse went when they got off and got me a 12-pack of beer and brought it back. But I got up in the morning and I got off the Demerol, right, and I got up in the morning and you remember Kevin Wilk from down there? So I went down to rehab and they don’t let you leave there until you can raise your arm over your shoulder. So I didn’t have any painkillers. I thought this will be no big deal. I could feel it hurt, but before they put that crank, you know they lift it up slowly. Brother, I was sweating like — I mean I was so bad. So we got with Demerol and I’ve had Demerol.”
Watch Ric Flair’s complete appearance on the debut episode of the Pro Wrestling 4 Life podcast hosted by Sean “X-Pac” Waltman via the video embedded below courtesy of the official YouTube channel of the show. H/T to Fightful for transcribing the above quotes.
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