Ric Flair passes out twice during wrestling comeback at 73-years-old

Wrestling legend Ric Flair returned to the ring for the first time in 11 years for what was billed as his ‘Last Match’.

And let’s just say it didn’t exactly go to plan for the 73-year-old.

The WWE Hall Of Famer needed to scratch that wrestling itch one last time, teaming up with his daughter Charlotte Flair’s husband Andrade El Idolo to take on long-time rival Jeff Jarrett and Jay Lethal.

The event was christened ‘Ric Flair’s Last Match’.

Heading into the match there were concerns for the safety of the Nature Boy considering his hiatus from being in the ring and the fact that he’s now in his 70s. 

And lo and behold Flair was clearly struggling, and after the match admitted to blacking out twice during.

Speaking on his To Be The Man podcast, he said: “I don’t think people realized that I passed out twice. 

“Well what happened was, my regimentation for training was so strict that I kept my weight, I wanted my perfect weight to be like 220 (lbs) going in. So on the last day, the last day and a half, aside from all the work that we had planned for me to do, I didn’t hydrate. 

“I had it in my mind that I had to weigh 219. So I went to the ring and I’m like 217 pounds, and what happened during the body of the match is I just became dehydrated.” 

Flair recalled missing about 10 seconds of the matchup at one point before coming to when his partner attempted to wake him up.

At one point during the match, the Naitch went outside the ring and looked in all sorts, leading to a lot of concerned looks from the wrestlers and audience.

However, he claims he was just trying to ‘get everybody to slow down’ and ‘reorganise’. 

Flair then described how he passed out yet again after taking a guitar shot, saying: “Then at that point, along came the guitar, right. Down, bingo. Well, I was down. I passed out again. 

“I just passed out, and [Andrade] is going, ‘Sir, you have to wake up. I have the brass knuckles. Sir, you have to wake up.’ Then I woke up, I knew where we were, and we’re home. 

“But I swear to god, twice during the match, I went completely black."

Funnily enough, it was The Undertaker who made the former World Champion come to his senses after the match when Flair simply wanted to get on the beers.

He said: “I had like six beers there. [The Undertaker] took them out of my hand and said, ‘You’re drinking two Gatorades first.’ So I drank two, and that’s all it was. 

“I underestimated the importance of keeping hydrated, which is really big, especially when I lost that much weight and trained that hard.”

Topics: RAW, Ric Flair, WWE, WWE Smackdown, Wrestlemania, Wrestling, Australia

Jayden Collins

Jayden Collins is a Journalist at SPORTbible. He has worked across multiple media platforms in areas such as sport, music, pop culture, entertainment and politics. He is part of the editorial team for LADbible Australia.