Undertaker’s text phone call message to Ric Flair after the ‘Final Farewell’ retirement ceremony at Survivor Series was revealed on the Wrestling Inc. podcast today. New Day ‘surprising’ Undertaker in the WWE dressing room was just revealed.
Taker said, “Happy Thanksgiving Champ!! Thank you for carrying this business and setting the bar of greatness! The bar we all strived to reach and very few have even gotten close to! Then, now and forever you are ‘The Champ’!! So proud to call you my friend.”
Flair recalled wrestling Undertaker at WrestleMania 18 in 2002, “That’s when Mark carried me, but we did have a hell of a match. In 2002, I’m 54, but we did have a hell of a match, which was great. After The Last Ride, he talks about [how] he had some insecurities too. His were around health problems, bad back and stuff like that, which caused him to be insecure. Mine was all mental but we share that in common.
Self confidence, no matter if it’s your body’s holding up or your mind and being able to do it and perform at the level that everybody thinks you can, it doesn’t matter how many times Hunter (Triple H) will say to me, ‘God damn it! You’re Ric Flair! Go out there and just relax. Be yourself.’ It goes in one ear, and it goes out the other.
You shake your head and go ‘yes,’ and then you walk through the curtain and it’s just not there. And I think that is just due to being beating down for so long. I still really enjoyed some of that time and such great guys, Randy [Orton], Dave [Batista and] Hunter. How cool is that? Right?!”
Flair also discussed Eric Bischoff reaching out to him after his son Reid died, “When my son died… I don’t think we’re ever going to be best friends, but when something like that happens, or when I get sick like I did or something that really upsets your life, those are the people that show up,” Ric noted. “And I can remember driving across town about three days after he died. Eric called on the phone because I was crushed. I was absolutely devastated.
I can remember the people that called and the people that didn’t. If they couldn’t come, they called or texted me. Those are the people that count, or likewise, when I was sick, you really find out who your friends are. It took me six months to return them all, but I had over 170 texts on my phone, and Wendy counted each one of them. You wake up and you don’t know where you are.
That’s who you know who your friends are because there’s people that I was very close to that did not show up for his (Reid’s) funeral and did not text me. Simple as that but there are people that I spent a lot of time with and put a lot of faith in, and we’re very close. I didn’t hear a word from them, and those are the things that are more hurtful than anything I experienced in wrestling. It’s just a very personal feeling.” You can see more at Wrestling Inc.
