Lawler was very sad to hear of Ric Flair’s hospitalization over the weekend. He says he sat next to Flair at a convention just a couple of weeks ago and Flair appeared to be in very good health. The notion that Flair’s lifestyle has finally caught up with him doesn’t hold up in Lawler’s mind, because these health issues appear to have come out of nowhere. He also believes that the stories of Flair’s ‘wild side’ are often overblown.
Lawler considers Flair to be the greatest worker of his time, and maybe of all time. As good as Flair was in the ring, he might have been even better on the mic with his ability to talk fans into the building. Flair really was the complete package as a sports entertainer.
Lawler says that throughout his entire career he only worked four matches with Flair. Lawler spent the majority of his in-ring career working in Memphis, while Flair was the World Champion for a large portion of his career. This meant Flair was travelling the country working in different territories every single week, so they only time they crossed paths was when Flair came through Memphis.
Lawler informs that it was nearly impossible during those days to get the world Champion live on television, but they were able to accomplish that on Memphis television one time when Flair came through. Memphis Wrestling began teasing a match between Flair and Lawler, and they built this match for three years before finally squaring off at the Midsouth Coliseum in front of a sold out crowd of over 10,000 people.
