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I finally got to watch the new Ric Flair documentary straight through on Peacock over the weekend and I wanted to share some thoughts.

I’ll admit I’ve been a mark for The Nature Boy the past 25 years or so but I think I can step back from things and see the good and the bad.

Tom Rinaldi does an excellent job as an interviewer and narrator for this documentary, which is no surprise if you’ve seen the human interest pieces he has reported for ESPN Gameday the past several years.

The part of the documentary about Flair being adopted through a black market adoption agency is fascinating but it’s also cringeworthy when he admits his long-lost brother contacted his “wife” Wendi but that he wasn’t interested in talking to his brother and wondered what they could possibly talk about. He also indicated that his brother probably only wanted to contact him because of who he is.

The documentary refers to Wendi as his wife throughout the whole thing, but early last year when they announced their break-up they also said they were never actually married. Another inconsistency throughout is the documentary referring to the WWE-manufactured fiction that Flair is only a 16-time World Champion, when the truth is at least 21 and maybe as many as 25.

The theme throughout the documentary, starting with Rinaldi asking Flair who Richard Fliehr is then asking who Ric Flair is, centers around the dichotomy between Ric Flair’s wrestling persona and his actual life as a husband and father. As most of us already know, the lines blurred with the lifestyle he lived on the road as the “Rolex wearin’, limousine ridin’, jet flyin’ son-of-a-gun”.

This tension affects his relationships with his wives, his children, and impacts his career.

One thing that I was really struck by was the parts of the documentary about the life and later death of his son Reid. It was hard not to get emotional hearing Ric Flair talking about the night before and then the day of Reid’s overdose-related death in a Charlotte hotel room.

Another thought I had from the documentary is how impressed I was with the interviews with Ashley Fliehr (who wrestles as Charlotte in WWE). She is a formidable person intellectually and she already has shown she physically has the tools to be one of the all-time greats in the ring.

I really was not a fan of Flair coming back for another last match this past year, but I also purchased the pay-per-view on Fite. I hope he doesn’t try to come back again for another match, but I know he probably will. When I was young, he was one of the heels that everyone tuned into watch in the Crockett territory because they loved to hate him. Later, as part of The Four Horsemen, he became one of the cool heels that a certain segment of wrestling fans liked.

I would recommend watching this documentary no matter what your opinion of Ric Flair is. It is of a higher production quality than what you’d normally see on projects WWE is involved in the production of and I think Peacock and Rinaldi give it more gravitas.