After the divorce Fliehr received less than $150,000 on all annuities, after an initial investment of $1.24 million.

I'm guessin the "millions in annuities" is right. Just that they were all gone, considering he cashed out $100K in an annuity to get Wife #3 a ring. Gone long before the "millions in annuities" meme was started up.

 

Of course I'm sure Flair Reporters will say that _after_ the divorce form Beth that he restocked up with a bunch of new annuities that somehow survived future divorces and all of Ric's debts.

 

John

And the fate of the beloved Ric Flair Finance:

 

Chris Porter, a business partner, sued Fliehr for $115,000 on a $140,000 loan.

 

According to Fliehr's response to the lawsuit, Porter had convinced Fliehr to start a company called Ric Flair Finance, which was "intended to use the fame popularity of Fliehr in order to build a lead generation company for mortgages." Porter told Fliehr that they didn't need a lender or broker license to start the online company, which would generate leads and pass them to lenders for a fee. Fliehr advertised the company on WWE television broadcasts and before a NASCAR race in Delaware. When RFF finally launched, the "business model … turned out to be completely illegal." North Carolina shut down the company for noncompliance.

Damnit... that stuff has been sitting in public court records for several years. I'd love to read all the stuff from that one.

 

John

Ric Flair Finance

'Nuff said.

One does have to find the sheer con man qualities of Ric Flair in 2007 opening up a finance company after years of welching on his own debts.

 

John

Looks like someone is going to need to update the "Personal life" and "Legal issues" section of Ric's wiki page.

 

John

Not sure which thread to put it in, so since I'm looking at this one:

 

Did we know about Beth's rape allegations in the divorce filing before? I remember the domestic violence accusations and Ric busting open his gig marks when the police came but not that.

I vaugely remember something along those lines buried in a list of abusive stuff. I think most of us treat the very most extreme of it as he-said-she-said stuff that gets tossed out in divorces. The busting open old cuts to self juice for sympathy from the cops when domestic dispute calls out to the Flair house... that is so *Ric* that I think we all thought that was something more credible. It just doesn't sound like something Beth would make up. Rape... you know I've been on the far end of critical of Ric in all this stuff, but that one reads like a stretch.

 

The Flair Show stuff of wagging the cock around friends... that comes across as a bit of a stretch, and perhaps taking some liberties with his recent plane incident. You look for stuff to throw, and that's not a bad one.

 

I really think the bottom line on all of this stuff is two part:

 

* Ric has spent three decades as a con man intentionally defrauding people and entities out of money.

 

When laid out like this, it's frankly criminal. The IRS and State kind of let him off the hook for his crimes with back taxes, but he instantly when back to not paying his taxes (either in full or in part) and making them chase him.

 

Then all the loans and purchases and services he entered into and didn't pay back / pay for, it's really clear that his intent on so much of "living his lifestyle" was to no pay for shit / rip people off. It's really stunning, and I doubt his piece has everything: it's just what he got sued for. Lord knows how many other "friends" of Ric simply wrote off money that he ripped off from them at lower amounts.

 

* at 62, his three decades of running the cons have left his life a total trainwreck

 

The financial ones are obvious. But running cons on and with Beth, running a con of being any kind of a father, running cons on the first and now 3rd & 4th wives along with everyone else in his life has left his life a complete trainwreck.

 

But WTF... he's still Ric Flair living the "good life", every day like it's his life. Death will make him judgement prove, though may suck down which ever woman at that point he's conned into being his wife.

 

John

Remember when the common view was that Arn Anderson was pussy whipped "siding" with his wife & Beth?

Remember when the common view was that Arn Anderson was pussy whipped "siding" with his wife & Beth?

Not familiar with this. I know he and Flair aren't close anymore, but I didn't know there was more to it that had been said publicly.

I don't recall a ton of details but i'd sort of heard that story before.

 

The gist I think is that Arn's wife & Beth are really close so Arn sort of sided with them when the divorce went down which led to the bad blood between him & Flair.

I don't doubt that story, but I've just never seen it reported anywhere.

It's been so long so I don't recall who the source was, someone reliable or just msg board chatter.

 

As best I can tell Flair and Arn have never talked about it directly that much in public though. The "pussy whiped" part was more fans coming to that conclusion after hearing the story.

There is a section of Ric Flair's WWE Hall of Fame speech where the camera is on Arn for extended period of time it is very, very uneasy.

One longtime observer of Flair's thoughts on the piece:

 

When a reporter pulls a list from a courthouse about a person, I believe he then has an obligation to provide real context on each and every item in the story, and then show how they fit together in the big picture, particularly if the likelihood is the story could cost the subject dearly. Shane Ryan didn't even try to do that.

 

Here's some context: Ric Flair is an awful businessman who often times saddles the people who do business with him with serious debt. He hasn't met his tax obligations over the years, despite making a sizable income. He has always lived well beyond his means. He has had serious problems with spouses, and yet he keeps getting married. (My understanding is the spouses also fought in court over how well he ********************.) When the culture changed on what was acceptable behavior for outlaw pro wrestlers, he didn't always adjust with it.

 

Here's something that was completely left out of the piece: Ric Flair has amassed, over several decades, a record of performance in the ring that makes him hands down the greatest pro wrestler who ever lived.

 

If you think my job is to go down to courtrooms and write down and publish lists of the legal entanglements of professional wrestlers without much context, think again. Flair was nice enough to make it even easier for Ryan by living in the same town all those years.

I don't even know what he's trying to say. Yet I thought the opening did a pretty good job of explaining who Flair was. I'm surprised Mitchell was even slightly critical of him, to tell you the truth. But what context is missing? Do his in-ring performances somehow change/justify/add depth to the story?

Bruce Mitchell sounds like an idiot in that post. Does context change a thing in this case? I don't get these guys that try to justify bad behaviour from guys because they happen to be entertaining in the ring.

Continuing on that note, I'm usually one of the first to criticize wrestling writers that I think are overly critical without balancing it out by also occasionally explaining why they like wrestling. It's one of my biggest problems with Irv, that after all of the material he's put out over the years I still know absolutely nothing about him as a wrestling fan, or even if he is one at all. But I don't think that criticism works here. This was an attempt to apply context to the available information by adding some chronology and a narrative. It worked. There is almost no editorializing, if there's even any at all. It's not a hit job. It's a recap of the facts.

But how could anyone act like it was a hit job though. That's what I don't understand about Mitchell's post. There doesn't need to be a context because Flair has done all of those things. Trying to downplay it like he did is more dishonest than what the reporter did.

Two things:

 

Bruce has been (lightly) critical of Flair in the past. Mark Madden is the real Ric Flair white knight.

 

This maybe a cop out reply but Bruce is a columnist not a news reporter.

One shudders to think of what Mitchell actually thinks about Benoit.

That's fine. Then say that instead of getting on your moral high horse and going on about context.

Two things:

 

Bruce has been (lightly) critical of Flair in the past. Mark Madden is the real Ric Flair white knight.

 

This maybe a cop out reply but Bruce is a columnist not a news reporter.

I understand that. And we all have our biases. I don't expect him to eliminate them, just acknowledge them.

One shudders to think of what Mitchell actually thinks about Benoit.

I dont know why you would say that, Dylan. I am genuinely not sure if you ever read the Torch. But personally I never got any impression that he is one of those "remember the wrestler" types when it comes to Benoit. Bruce is only mealy mouthed when it comes to Flair for whatever reason.

 

Flair is just a philandering drunk not a child murder. Bruce as a teacher of relatively young children I dont think he takes something like that lightly.

I subscribed to the Torch for 6 years.

 

Well aware that Flair is not a child murderer but that's not the point. The point is that the "context matters!" line, followed by "eh, he was really great so who gives a shit if he is a career criminal" can be extended very easily to other all-time great workers. Ask Resident Evil.

Flair may have exposed himself, but Jim Herd exposed the business with his Ding Dongs idea!