Nature Boy

Last night I saw an ESPN documentary and it was on a topic of interest to me, as I explain below: 

I am a pro wrestling fan (I don't watch modern wrestling as I think most of it is insufferable; it'd take far too long to go into detail as to why) so of course I'd have to see this ESPN 30 for 30 documentary. It's been on the shelf for awhile, so after a commercial break they had to do a cut-away and mention Ric Flair's recent serious medical issues, where he had to defy the odds just to survive. Nature Boy did show that he led a very hard life and that was the main cause of those health problems.

The film was rather straightforward: his childhood and life before pro wrestling were discussed, then the incredibly difficult training he had to do in order to even become a pro wrestler... it was like a Marines boot camp. His rise in the 80's to usually being the champ in the rival organization to the WWF is shown, and it was made clear his federation was the polar opposite of the cartoony WWF, and instead it was blood and guts and something adult men would enjoy, where often wrestlers would be bleeding.

It was also shown how the Flair character has become popular in pop culture, with many entertainers and athletes enjoying his catchphrases and his cockiness. The character was an arrogant rich playboy who bragged about how great he was, the Lear jets he flew around in, all the partying, and all the women he bedded. Of course that would be appealing to plenty of people. Unfortunately, he lived that character 24/7; it's bad enough that at the time the popular pro wrestlers were rarely at home so they missed their kids growing up... his nonstop partying and sleeping around led to several failed marriages and his children resenting him. What happened to his son Reid... very sad; I don't want to reveal it for those who don't know and want to see this in the future. I'll just say it's heartbreaking.

Me, I am a pro wrestling nerd so I knew most of what was in the documentary beforehand. Heck, I've even read Flair's autobiography back in the day, which was good. I wish this would have been longer than about 70 minutes; various things were glossed over and I know it's hard to cram all that info into 70 minutes, but this doesn't go above “fine” in my eyes. My prior knowledge does color things and if you only knew about Ric casually, I am sure you'd rate this differently. At least there wasn't too much revisionist history going on and the film was honest in showing he led a flawed life and while he was great in his job as professional wrestler, his personal life was a mess. Thankfully he doesn't drink or party anymore and he's with a woman who cares about him and she should be a stable influence for him.

Oh, and it was neat seeing all those wrestling clips, photos, and comments from various wrestling personalities. I hadn't seen too many pictures of Flair before he became Ric Flair, so that was a treat.