Jim Cornette isn’t laughing about Ric Flair’s latest health scare. After Flair’s recent fall in Tampa left him hospitalized and later photographed wearing an eye patch, Cornette admitted that watching what’s happening with The Nature Boy has become more sad than funny.
Speaking on his YouTube channel, Cornette discussed Flair’s recent string of health issues and questioned why the 77-year-old continues living such a public lifestyle. Flair had already revealed that he was dealing with a blood clot in his leg and had been advised against traveling before suffering the fall that injured his face and eye. Cornette acknowledged that there are plenty of jokes someone could make about Flair and his reputation for partying, but he said he doesn’t really feel like making them anymore.
“Again, I keep saying this about things, but I don’t want to laugh about all this. But Ric Flair, he just can’t help himself, or he doesn’t want to, or he insists on being a public spectacle. And it’s sad. It’s just sad. I mean, at the end of the day, it’s just really, really sad.”
Cornette then questioned why Flair still feels the need to maintain such a big public presence when he’s dealing with serious health concerns. In his view, somebody who has already accomplished as much as Flair shouldn’t have anything left to prove and could afford to slow things down considerably.
“I don’t understand why many of my contemporaries still desire a giant life in the spotlight or even just want to go anywhere for anything. But you don’t have to be a complete hermit. Just when you’ve got blood clots and you’ve got — what was the procedure that he scheduled to try to dissolve it with alcohol? Just rest and follow a — get a puppy. Get a puppy. No, then I’d feel sorry for the puppy. The puppy would be the responsible one in the household. But I just wish that more people who are of that age and have this many people that revere what they have done would leave it at that and just have a little quieter existence. I don’t understand.”
What really seems to bother Cornette is that this isn’t the Ric Flair he remembers from decades ago. Sure, Flair loved drinking and partying back then too, but Cornette said there was another side to him once it was time to actually handle business. Cornette remembered traveling with Flair when he was a booker and world champion, and said Flair knew exactly when it was time to shut off the partying and act like a professional. Whether it was production meetings, traveling or representing the business in public, Cornette remembers Flair taking those responsibilities seriously.
“The Ric Flair that I knew, the adult 30s, 40s Ric Flair, where yes, he was still going out and drinking and partying and blah, blah, blah, and all the stories. But when he had to come to CNN Center, when we’re on the road somewhere, the airport, he’s got the suit on. He’s immaculately put together. He’s not f****** drunk on the planes to the towns. He might be drunk on Crockett’s plane after the show, but you know what I’m saying?
When I was traveling with him, he was the booker. He wasn’t drinking anything on a drive that we might take to get there for a five or six o’clock production meeting back in those days. We might be in a car from one or two. He didn’t drink anything. And he went and he f****** worked, and he was the booker.
When he met other people, he carried off that he is the world champion. He could be both. He did the partying at night, but he still functioned as a respectable adult that came off as a professional.”
That contrast is apparently what Cornette has such a hard time wrapping his head around now. He doesn’t understand how the polished world champion he remembers eventually became the version of Flair people regularly see hanging around bars and making headlines outside wrestling.
“And I don’t know what the f*** has gone on where he’s morphed into wearing Aunt Lola’s couch cover and all of the jewelry everywhere and just being at a bar all the time.”
Flair himself certainly doesn’t seem interested in acting like his latest accident is the end of the world. He recently fired back at people asking how he’s still alive by pointing to the thousands of matches, airplane crash and life-threatening hospitalization he already survived before basically asking why anyone thinks an injured eye is going to stop him.
He still has another eye surgery ahead and potentially a skin graft, but Cornette’s concern goes beyond this one injury. He remembers a version of Flair who could party like Ric Flair at night and still switch it off when necessary — and watching that line seemingly disappear over the years is what he finds genuinely sad.
Do you think Jim Cornette has a point about Ric Flair needing to slow things down after his recent health scares? Let us know what you think in the comments.
This transcript was produced exclusively for Ringside News from the original recording. Republishing the transcription in full is prohibited. When using excerpts, provide prominent credit and a link to this article.
