| NET WORTH: | $2 Million |
|---|---|
| Source of Wealth: | Wrestling Manager, Retired Professional Wrestler |
| Born: | February 25, 1949 |
| Age: | 71 |
| Spouse: | Wendy Barlow |
| Children: | 4 |
| Birth Name: | Richard Morgan Fliehr |
| Height: | 6ft. (1.85m) |
Ric Flair is known as a retired professional wrestler and wrestling manager. His career lasted for almost 40 years and was ranked by his fellows and several journalists as one of the greatest professional wrestlers of all time. He was awarded with Wrestler of the Year and is officially recognized as a 16-time world champion by WWE. Flair was the first holder of the WCW World Heavyweight Championship and the WCW International World Heavyweight Championship.
Early Life
Richard Morgan Fliehr was born on February 25, 1949 in Memphis, Tennessee, but spent his childhood mostly in Edina, Minnesota when their family moved from Tennessee. He was adopted by Dr. Richard Reid Fliehr and Kathleen Kinsmiller Fliehr. It was believed that his birth name is Fred Philips, but in other documents he is also referred as Fred Demaree or Stewart.
During his high school at Wayland Academy, he participated in interscholastic wrestling, track, and football. He attended University of Minnesota after he graduated high school.
Career
When Flair was just an amateur wrestler, he trained as a professional wrestler with Verne Gagne. He made his professional wrestling debut in Rice Lake, Wisconsin on 1972. During his time in American Wrestling Association, he had matches with several known professional wrestlers like Dusty Rhodes, Larry Hennig, and Christ Taylor. Flair also made his first appearance with International Wrestling Enterprise on 1973 in Japan as a relation to a working agreement of IWE and AWA.
In 1974, he left AWA to join the Jim Crockett's Mid-Atlantic region in the National Wrestling Alliance. Flair beat Paul Jones in the Mid-Atlantic TV Championship and earned his first singles title, on February 9, 1975. After his career almost ended due to a serious plane crash in Wilmington, North Carolina on 1975, Flair defeated Bobo Brazil and won the NWA United States Heavyweight Champion on July 29, 1977.
Flair beat Dusty Rhodes on September 17, 1981, for his first NWA World Heavyweight Championship. Flair also experienced losses in several matches, however days later he regains the title and won it back. In 1983, Harley Race won the NWA World Heavyweight Championship from Flair, however, Flair reclaimed the title in a steel cage match that took place at Starrcade. In September 25, 1987, Flair lost to Ron Garvin the NWA World Heavyweight Championship, and Garvin was able to hold the title for two months before he lost at WCW's first pay-per-view event to Flair on November 26, 1987.
He began working tours for All Japan Pro Wrestling, while still working for former professional wrestling promoter, Jim Crockett Jr.'s Mid-Atlantic Championship Wrestling. In August 1991, he signed with the World Wrestling Federation (WWF) and started appearing on television with a Big Gold Belt. When Flair was deciding to leave the WWF, Bill Watts offered him to back to WCW. He performed his remaining last show commitments before he returned to WCW in 1993.
In 2000, Flair won his last world titles by winning WCW World Heavyweight Championship twice. Flair was the leader of the villainous group, "Magnificent Seven". Flair returned to WWF on November 2001, after an 8 months of hiatus. He wrestled The Undertaker in March 2002 at WrestleMania X8, where he lost. In 2002 to 2008, Flair toured Japan under the WWE banner, where he wrestled to several wrestlers including The Dudley Boyz in early 2004, and successfully defended the World Tag Team Championship together with Batista.
Flair had numerous matches in Raw where he defended, lost, and won several "career threatening" matches. He fought to keep his career going and earned the 2008 PWI award, "Most Inspirational Wrestler of the Year".
On March 31, 2008, Flair delivered his farewell address on an episode of Raw. He returned to WWE on December 17, 2012 as a non-wrestling personality on the annual Slammy Awards show. WWE celebrated his 70th birthday on February 25, 2019, on a special episode of Raw in Atlanta, Georgia.
On November 22, 2020, Flair made an appearance at Survivor Series during The Undertaker's retirement ceremony.
Personal Life
In August 28, 1971, Flair married his first wife Leslie Goodman and had their two children, Megan and David. After 12 years of marriage, the two got divorced in 1983. On the same year, he married his second wife, Elizabeth Harrell and had two children, Ashley and Reid. The two was married for almost 23 years before they divorced in 2006. On May 27, 2006, Flair married his third wife Tiffany VanDemark. In 2008, Tiffany files a divorced from Flair. He married his fourth wife, Jacqueline Beems on November 11, 2009. Flair files a divorced from Beems in 2012, and was finalized in 2014. On September 12, 2018, Flair married his fifth wife, Wendy Barlow, in Florida.
Flair has a hear condition called alcoholic cardiomyopathy, and had a surgery in Georgia on August 14, 2017, to remove an obstructive piece of his bowel, that results to several complications, most seriously kidney failure.
Net Worth
On September 2007, Flair opened a financial business called Ric Flair Finance. However, Flair Finance filed for bankruptcy in July 2008. Despite of this situation, with his 40 years of career as a professional wrestler, Flair has an estimated net worth of $2 million as of today, 2021.
