Ric Flair feigned having had a heart attack in his last match. As it turns out, he actually did have one, and found out months later.
The Nature Boy retired from wrestling for the first time at WrestleMania 24. He lost to Shawn Michaels at the event to end his career, but went on to wrestle for a number of years in TNA, as well as select independent shows.
His career seemed to be over in 2022, when 6,800 bought tickets to see a 73-year-old Ric Flair wrestle one last time. He teamed with his son-in-law, Andrade, to take on Jeff Jarrett and Jay Lethal. The match wasn’t great, and Flair was clearly in no shape at his age to be wrestling.
Ric Flair appeared on the Jaxxon Podcast and revealed that he had a legitimate heart attack during his last match. He didn’t realize it until well after the match, until he got a check-up due to his pacemaker.
“Yeah, I trained (for my last match), I got in the best shape, ever since I was 20 years old, and then I had a heart attack during the match. I had a heart attack during the match,” Flair said (via POST Wrestling). “A lot of people didn’t (know). I didn’t know myself until about six months ago because I went and got a — I go to the heart doctor like every six months because I’ve got the pacemaker, right? And they put that on me when I was real sick, not because I had a problem with my heart, but because they couldn’t get over the fact that my heart rate was so low, but it was from all of those hour-long matches and all that cardio.”
Ric Flair Only Knew He Had A Heart Attack Because He Passed Out In His Last Match
Ric Flair continued. He revealed that after two days of tests, the doctors noticed that he had a heart attack at some point.
Flair claims they asked him if he’s passed out in the past, and because the only time was during his last match in the summer of 2022, that must have been when he suffered the heart attack.
“So it’s two days of three hours of testing and this is six months ago. The guy takes me in and if you look at your heart like a round pie, there’s a piece of my heart right here, this big, it’s black, it’s gone. The guy said, ‘You’ve had a heart attack in the last two years.’ I said, ‘I never hurt.’ He said, ‘Have you passed out in the last two years?’ And during my last match, I passed out three times, and I thought it was because I was dehydrated.
“So I went in the locker room, I was with Kid Rock and Taker. I just drank two bottles of Gatorade and went back out to Kid Rock’s place all night long. But I had a heart attack. It didn’t hurt, no, none. I feel great, that’s my problem. I’m sure I’m just gonna fall off a chair one day (he laughed). They’re gonna say, there he is. Get that little son of a b*tch up out of here.”
