Daisy Phillipson
Ric Flair has revealed that he passed out twice during his last ever WWE match that left him covered in blood.
The veteran wrestler was victorious in his retirement match inside Nashville Municipal Auditorium on July 31, defeating both Jeff Jarrett and Jay Lethal alongside Andrade El Idolo.
But the match wasn’t without its difficulties for the 73-year-old, with fans worrying about his health and wellbeing.
And it turns out they were right to be concerned, as the ‘Nature Boy’ fainted not once, but twice during the bloody bout.
In an interview with the To Be The Man podcast, Flair said: “I don’t think people realise that I passed out twice.
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“What happened was, my regimentation for training was so strict that I kept my weight on. I wanted my perfect weight to be like 220lbs going in.
“So the last day and a half, aside from all the work that we had planned for me to do, I didn’t hydrate cause I had it in my mind that I had to weigh 219lbs.
“So anyway, I went to the ring at about 217lbs. What happened during the body of the match, I just became dehydrated.
“While I was standing on the apron, I looked at Jay which started the whole wheel of motion. I said, ‘Man, I think I’m getting sick,’ because I was getting lightheaded.
“Nothing to do with my heart, nothing to do with my intestines, just getting lightheaded. I’m sure a lot of it was nerves as well.”
At this point, Andrade came over to tell him it was his turn, but he ‘didn’t know’ where he was in the match as he’d missed about ‘10 seconds’ of it.
“Jeff, out of respect for me, he lifted me atop the turnbuckle and Jay was going to give me a superplex,” added Flair, “which would have blown the roof off the joint but he was worried about my health.”
The second black out occurred near the end when Jarrett missed a swing at the WWE champion and took out Lethal as planned.
Flair continued: “Then along came the guitar, right down - bingo, don’t know. While I was down, I passed out again. I just passed out.
“Manny is going, ‘Sir, you have to wake up, I have the brass knuckles, sir, you have to wake up.’ So then I woke up, I knew where we were, right – boom and we’re home.
“I swear to god twice during the match, I went completely black.”
Thankfully he lived to tell the tale, and was able to bow out from WWE in style.
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