Ric Flair says his wrestling schedule during the early 1980s was so brutal that he had just 17 days off across roughly three years — although that eye-popping number comes entirely from Flair’s own recollection.
Flair made the claim during a conversation with Roman Sharf while discussing whether he would have handled his money differently if he knew then what he knows now. Flair explained that people looking back at wrestling from that era may not understand just how often he was working. That’s when Flair dropped the 17-day figure, even correcting himself on the years while telling the story.
“I used to work every day, you know, twice on Saturday, twice on Sunday. From 1981—no, ’82 to ’85, I had 17 days off. Think about that. Three years, 17 days off.”
That is an unbelievable workload if the number is accurate, but Flair did not provide records or anything else during the conversation to verify the exact 17-day figure. It should be treated as Flair remembering his schedule decades later rather than a documented count of every day he worked. Still, there is no question Flair was describing a punishing travel routine. He immediately followed the claim by recalling what he called one of the wildest stretches of his career.
“And some of the days off I was traveling. Like, I would—one of the wildest runs I ever did was I wrestled an hour in Sydney, went to New Zealand, wrestled an hour in Auckland, wrestled an hour in Christchurch, back to Auckland, flew non-stop back to St. Louis—not non-stop, but Chicago, St. Louis—wrestled an hour in St. Louis, flew to Atlanta, wrestled an hour and took off in the morning, went back to Atlanta or to Japan.”
Flair then summed up the trip by saying it covered an absurd amount of ground while also stressing that these weren’t short appearances.
“A 13,000-mile week. I mean, all hour-long matches.”
Later in the conversation, Flair also described the routine he says he maintained while traveling as world champion. If he couldn’t get into a gym, he claimed he was knocking out hundreds of bodyweight reps instead. Flair said that became his standard routine while constantly moving from city to city.
“Five hundred free squats every day, 200 push-ups every day unless I could get to a gym.”
“I just got in that mode where I’d do 500 free squats in the morning, 200 push-ups.”
He also claimed he added another 250 crunches to the daily routine. When Sharf asked if Flair meant every single day, Flair doubled down.
“And then, uh, 250 crunches every day.”
“Every day. I know no sleep. I did not sleep at night. There was no reason to.”
Whether the 17-days-off figure is exact or Flair compressing decades-old memories into one staggering number, the schedule he described was still a completely different world from modern wrestling. Hour-long matches, international flights and another match waiting on the other side sounds less like a tour and more like a test of survival.
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.
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