WWE Hall of Famer Ric Flair recently spoke with Alex McCarthy of talkSPORT ahead of Legends Night on WWE RAW. “The Nature Boy” reflected on his career.
Flair shared his thoughts on his match with Shawn Michaels at WWE WrestleMania 24. He stated that he wasn’t happy with the in-ring quality of the bout, but he felt that the emotional story might have made up for that. “Knowing that Shawn picked me as an opponent, God, I mean, the pressure was on but it was, you know, when it was over, it was so rewarding,” said Flair.
“People were going, ‘God, it was a great match,’ and to me, I was average at best, Shawn was great,” Flair admitted. “I didn’t think it was great. But I think the emotion was at a very high level because it was real. You can’t ever act out or put emotion in places it’s not real. So it was very real for me, and it has been for years.”
Flair also looked back on his memorable match with Triple H in Greenville, South Carolina. He pointed to this bout as an example of his struggles with his confidence as a performer at the time. “I had so many problems with self-confidence back then,” said Flair. “I can give you 100 examples, and it’s, once you lose it, especially when you’re getting older, it’s just so hard to bring it back.
“I just put so much pressure on myself that the self-confidence issues rolled in, and I’ve discussed it openly for years with people, but until you have actually experienced that, you listen to me speak it and say this, and you think like everybody else, how could that be possible with Ric Flair? Well it was hard for me….The mental wheels, I just couldn’t make them turn at the same speed that my body wanted to perform at.”
The full video is available here:
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