Ric Flair once said that on a flight from Chicago to Tokyo, he and WWE great Andre the Giant wiped out the entire plane’s stock of bottles of vodka. Blissfully reckless stories like these only added to the legend of Ric Flair. They seemed inconsequential until he was lying up in a hospital bed in August with “multiple failing organs.”
The 68-year-old WWE Hall of Famer was placed in a medically induced coma last month, and in his first interview out of the hospital, he vowed to never drink again.
“It scared the shit out of me,” Flair told People TV. “I never want to go through this again.”
Speaking on ESPN’s “Dan Le Batard Show” Thursday, Flair detailed just how unhealthy his lifestyle was.
“When I started in the business in 1972, we drove 3,000 miles a week, we drank beer on the road … threw cans out the windows and all the stuff, no cops, it was just a way of life,” Flair said. “Then pretty soon, it was drinking a beer, getting to the hotel, drinking liquor.”
Although Flair said he never drank before entering the ring, he estimates he had “between 3,700 and 4,000 calories” of liquor and soda DAILY. “It’d be like 20 drinks a day,” he said.
Flair lost a piece of his bowel in the fight to save his life, but is now equipped with a pacemaker, and more importantly, a healthier lifestyle. Best of luck The Nature Boy. Forever a legend.
[h/t The New York Post]