Richard Morgan Fliehr, better known as Ric Flair, is an American professional wrestling manager and retired professional wrestler signed to WWE under its Legends program.
Let’s find out interesting facts about him!
1. Fred Phillips was born February 25, 1949 in Memphis, Tennessee.
2. His birth name is widely perceived to be Fred Phillips, although on different documents he is also credited as Fred Demaree or Stewart, while his biological parents were Luther and Olive Phillips (the latter of which was also credited under the Demaree and Stewart surnames).
3. He was adopted and at the time of his adoption (arranged by the Tennessee Children’s Home Society) his father was completing a residency in Detroit.
4. Shortly afterward, the family settled in Edina, Minnesota, where the young Fliehr lived throughout his childhood and after ninth grade he attended Wayland Academy, a coeducational boarding school in Beaver Dam, Wisconsin, for four years (five years total in high school), during which time he participated in interscholastic wrestling, football and track.
5. Widely regarded as the greatest professional wrestler of all time and the best American performer of the 1980s, Flair has cultivated a legacy over a career that spans 40 years.
6. He is noted for his tenures with the National Wrestling Alliance (NWA), World Championship Wrestling (WCW), the World Wrestling Federation (WWF, later WWE) and Total Nonstop Action Wrestling (TNA).
7. Since the mid-1970s, he has used the moniker “The Nature Boy”.
8. A major pay-per-view attraction throughout his career, Flair headlined at the premier annual NWA/WCW event, Starrcade, on ten occasions, while also co-headlining its WWF counterpart, WrestleMania, in 1992, after winning that year’s Royal Rumble.
9. PWI awarded him their Wrestler of the Year award a record six times, while Wrestling Observer Newsletter named him the Wrestler of the Year (an award named after him and Lou Thesz) a record eight times.
10. The only two-time WWE Hall of Fame inductee, first inducted in 2008 for his individual career and again in 2012 as a member of The Four Horsemen, he is also an NWA Hall of Famer.
11. Flair is officially recognized by WWE and Pro Wrestling Illustrated (PWI) as a 16-time world champion (eight-time NWA World Heavyweight Champion, six-time WCW World Heavyweight Champion, and two-time WWF Champion), although the actual number of his world championship reigns varies by source, ranging from 16 to 25.
12. He considers himself a 21-time champion.
13. He was the first holder of the WCW World Heavyweight Championship and the WCW International World Heavyweight Championship (which he also held last).
14. As the inaugural WCW World Heavyweight Champion, he became the first person to complete WCW’s Triple Crown, having already held the United States Heavyweight and World Tag Team Championships.
15. He then completed WWE’s version of the Triple Crown when he won the Intercontinental Championship, after already holding the WWF Championship and the World Tag Team Championship.
16. Flair married his first wife, Leslie Goodman, on August 28, 1971. They had two children, daughter Megan and son David, before divorcing in 1983 after twelve years of marriage.
17. On August 27, 1983, he married his second wife, Elizabeth Harrell. Promoter Jim Crockett Jr. served as the best man for the wedding. They had two children, daughter Ashley and son Reid.
18. Beth also made periodic appearances in WCW between 1998 and 2000. Flair and Beth divorced in 2006 after nearly 23 years of marriage. On May 27, 2006, Flair married his third wife Tiffany VanDemark, a fitness competitor.
19. In 2008, Tiffany filed for divorce from Flair, which was finalized in 2009.
20. On November 11, 2009, Flair married his fourth wife, Jacqueline “Jackie” Beems, in Charlotte, North Carolina.
21. In 2012, Flair filed for divorce from Beems, which was finalized in 2014.
22. Flair is dating Wendy Barlow (the maid “Fifi” from Flair’s WCW interview segment “A Flair for the Gold”) as documented on ABC TV’s Celebrity Wife Swap where he swapped wife/girlfriend with Roddy Piper and his wife Kitty. Flair and Barlow got engaged in July 2016.
23. Flair’s son David is a semi-retired professional wrestler. Flair’s younger son Reid, who signed a developmental contract with WWE near the end of 2007, was an accomplished high school wrestler and made several appearances on WCW television along with his sister Ashley and half-sister Megan.
24. In 2004, Flair became a grandfather at the age of 55, when his older daughter, Megan Fliehr Ketzner, gave birth to her first child, a daughter named Morgan Lee Ketzner on May 9.
25. On May 17, 2012, it was reported that Flair’s daughter Ashley had signed with WWE adopting the ring name, Charlotte (which was later changed to include the Flair surname).
26. On March 29, 2013, Reid died from an accidental overdose of heroin, Xanax and a muscle relaxer.
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