May Ric Flair Never Leave Us
Ric Flair is nuts. Wooo! After forty-something years of wrestling professionally, his brain is probably mush. Woo! To see him now is to see a man, his mind preserved in amber — Wooo! — his body decayed by time, forced, through a triumph of will and spirit, to relive the caustic herky-jerky bluster of days gone past. And — Woo! — I cannot get enough of it.
The 67-year-old has been in a slow decline from his heights as “the stylin’, profilin’, limousine-riding, jet-flying, kiss-stealing, wheelin’-n’-dealin’ son of a gun” that he played in wrestling outfits across America. For years now, he has walked the line of self-parody and full self-actualization. It’s a complicated story, which Grantland covered back in 2011.
While he’s back in the WWE again (apparently), it’s his content away from the ring that’s most interesting.
He’s on Twitter, where he shared this video of him deadlifting 400 lbs. It made the rounds among the men’s lifestyle circles, and for good reason: a 67-year-old Ric Flair can still deadlift 400 lbs.
I.Will.Never.Retire. #17 pic.twitter.com/oZxu1ue5XB
— Ric Flair® (@RicFlairNatrBoy) January 4, 2017
He lets out a faint “woo,” tired and demure, after dropping the weight. It’s as satisfying as it is disappointing, a tacit admission that he’s starting to fade.
Then there’s the podcast, The Ric Flair Show, on which he made waves last year after dubiously claiming to have slept with Halle Berry in ’90s. The actress denied the claims, which, of course, just got the Nature Boy even more press.
Each offers a brief window into Ric Flair the man, if not Ric Flair the character. For that, though, we can turn to this new series of ads for US Auto Sales, a chain of preowned car dealerships across America.
The ads are a spoof on the classic car dealership spots played in heavy rotation in the ’90s. Eventually Flair’s spots give way to US Auto’s own segments about whatever they’re trying to say, themselves approaching the line of self-parody with their anodyne, circumscribed corporateness.
Flair plays himself, basically, just as a pushy, over-the-top used car salesman. “We’re bodyslamming prices to the ground,” he exclaims wildly. Slapping his biceps in excitement, he dances on the spot. “Woo!” he yells to no one. It’s great.
In another life, this is probably how Flair’s career would have played out, as it has for countless ex-athletes. Instead, we have the Nature Boy, the 16-time world champion, the man who will never retire. May he never leave us.
