Freddie Flintoff Claims WWE Offered Him ‘Obscene Money’ for WrestleMania and Royal Rumble

Cricket legend Freddie Flintoff almost traded the pitch for the squared circle—and apparently, WWE was ready to pay him big to do it.

During interviews on The Overlap and Betfair’s Stick to Cricket show, Flintoff revealed that WWE came knocking with what he described as a massive contract offer that would’ve seen him fast-tracked onto wrestling’s biggest stages.

“I got a three-year contract offer from WWE — they were going to fast track me into WrestleMania & Royal Rumble,” Flintoff admitted. “What happened was, it got to a point in Dubai where I was unfit, I’d put weight on and I was just not in a good place. I wanted to get fit again, but I needed motivation.”

Flintoff, known for his larger-than-life personality, said he even cooked up his own angle to get in the door.

“As a kid, I loved WWE, so I came up with this idea, because I was doing League of Their Own with Sky, to fight The Undertaker in Manchester! I wrote this treatment up and presented the idea to Sky, it started gathering momentum and next minute it’s being passed onto WWE. I was in contact with the WWE, Vince McMahon!”

Flintoff, who already had some buzz with WWE after teasing involvement with NXT UK alongside actor Tom Davis, said the money on the table from WWE was substantial—but in the end, family and personal priorities won out.

“We moved to Dubai — the plan was, I was going to play in the IPL and I was going to play for Brisbane, basing ourselves in Dubai. Unashamedly, if I could earn a bit of IPL money tax-free I’m sorted. When I had to retire, we decided to go through with it anyway and it was probably a good move getting away, my lifestyle wasn’t great at the time. I just hid for a bit and started to wonder ‘what am I going to do now?’ Some of the TV offers started to come, which was never the plan — I stumbled into that. I nearly joined the WWE, I didn’t want to box, that was never the plan! I would have been called ‘Big Fred!’”

While Flintoff never made it to WrestleMania, the door with WWE was clearly wide open—and it sounds like “Big Fred” would’ve been one of the most talked-about celebrity signings in years.