Ric Flair opens up about his friendship with the late Andre The Giant as well as his life before he was the ‘Nature Boy’.
Flair recently appeared on ‘Soup With Coup’ featuring Cooper Manning, brother of legendary NFL players Peyton and Eli Manning and spoke about looking back at old footage, not feeling like himself before the ‘Nature Boy’ gimmick:
“Yeah, most definitely. I needed to lose weight and as terrible as the plane crash was and how it could’ve affected my career forever, ultimately it didn’t but the doctor originally told me that I’d never wrestle again because I broke my back in three places but losing that weight, I was 255 at that time and I went down to 180-pounds and I never got over 240 again and 235-240 was my best weight where feel like I was cosmetically at my best.”
Flair also talked about Andre The Giant as a person and their relationship:
“Well, Andre started in Montreal in ’72, same time I started. He was Jean Ferre or Andre Roussimoff, I’m not sure which gimmick…anyway, he came to Minneapolis to complete his training while I was there, and Verne Gagne the promoter, and the guy who broke me in, had me drive Andre around. Ya know, like Chicago and Milwaukee from Minneapolis, if there was any marquee event he was at. Usually just the big cities, so I’d just drive Andre down, and like in Chicago, they didn’t put this in the HBO special, I would take him to Rush Street and man, it was a great time…he was the carrot. Every woman alive is fascinated by a 7 foot 4 man.”
Flair recalled some infamous Andre beer-drinking stories including one he witnessed:
“I was at the legendary one that I tell people to this day, I was with Angelo Mosca, who’s still living but has Alzheimer’s very bad and he’s up in Toronto. Anyway, he’s actually in Hamilton, he played for the Tiger Cats but in ’74 there was a bar across the street or two blocks from where we used to wrestle at, The Downtowner Hotel, which had a bar in it and he had a manager that would travel with them Frank (inaudible). So, Frank, myself, Angelo Mosca, and a couple other guys…and he drank 106 beers. Yup. Frank drank 54, the guy with him. Back then I could probably drink 20, 22.”
Related: Ric Flair Comments On Being A Hip Hop Icon, His Experience Filming ‘Ric Flair Drip’ Music Video
You can listen to the interview in its entirety below.
https://open.spotify.com/episode/084XFzTDqdIvUDXoqdrg9B?si=2dM2HFIeRtuhB_jrY8KNSA
