Walkin' That Aisle!

This weekend wrestling legend Ric Flair fought his last match and officially retired on Monday night. Emotional shit for sure. But, before I go any further let me say, if you didn't watch wrestling growing up, and you were a dude, man, I feel sorry for you. Actually, I take that back, I don't know what to say to you. If you wasn't watching wrestling as a kid, man, you must have been baking cakes and playing with My Little Pony. If you at least watched G.I. Joe and Transformers, you might still be cool, but its still a stretch.

Anyways, the Nature Boy Ric Flair is the all-time great, eff Hulk Hogan! Ric Flair was the most shit-talkingest wrestler ever. Coolest white boy ever. If you look up swag in the dictionary, it should have his face next to it, for real. He had quotes galore my personal favorite was "In order to be the man, you gotta beat the man!" and that shit rings true in every aspect of life.

He was probably the first bad guy that you still cheered for. I mean, he called himself "the dirtiest player in the game" and he lived it. That man cheated his ass off, but you still had to like him though. I think the only time I didn't really like Ric Flair was when he was beefing with Sting and later Bret Hart. Other than that, Ric was my dude.

But, as much as I liked Ric Flair and wrestling, I also kinda blame him for ruining it for me. When I was about 9 or 10, me and my family went on a CNN Center tour. Ted Turner owned WCW, the wresting league Ric was in at the time so, it was nothing to see him strolling through CNN Center, probably picking up a check. But, I fucked around and saw him and Lex Luger chilling and having lunch together. Mind you, these two was at the zenith of their beef. I just saw them beating the breaks off each other weeks prior. From that point on, I had to go ahead and believe what my mom always told me, wrestling is fake. I was still a hardcore wrestling fan up until I turned about 16. Because even though I knew it was fake, it still looked believable. But somewhere in the mid-90s that shit just got too outlandish. Nigga, I had 6 year old cousins calling that shit fake.

Through it all though, I'd still tune in just to hear Ric Flair talk shit and do that crazy ass thing where he'd let someone punch him and he'd flip over the ropes, stumble down the ring apron and fall on his back. Granted, I saw him do it a thousand times, it was always entertaining. I still like to see him do that chest slap and ye'll "WOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO."

So, when he retired this weekend, it was sad to see, but I was also kinda happy to see him go, I mean, Ric was looking bad out there. He was getting old, and I was feeling old just looking at him. I have a younger cousin I watch from time to time and he's at that stage where all that matters is wrestling and video games. He was watching SmackDown on time and I saw Ric Flair and the Undertaker fighting. I was like DAAAAAAMN! They still wrestling? My cousin didn't want to believe me when I told him that Undertaker's name used to be Mean Mark and that Ric Flair used to have a head full of hair. He just shot me a look like "nigga, you old."

Anyways, since I did the same for Chris Webber, I had to do the same for the Nature Boy! Here are some of his finer moments. I did little something over on Black Ice @ XXLMag.com too.