Ric Flair On Potentially Working With AEW: Tell Tony Khan ‘I’m Around’
Photo Credit: WWE
Ric Flair is looking at an open road following the end of his run with WWE.
During an appearance on Oral Sessions with Renée Paquette, Flair discussed his future and acknowledged the speculation that he could sign with All Elite Wrestling. “The Nature Boy” stated that, as rumors have suggested, he is friends with company president Tony Khan, but he hasn’t heard from him. But he jokingly told Paquette, former AEW World Champion Jon Moxley’s wife, to tell Khan that he’s “around.” He then stated he’d be interested in working with AEW, but he’d ask Vince McMahon about it first because he feels like he owes that to the WWE Chairman.
“‘Oh he’s going to AEW, he and Tony Khan are friends,'” said Flair. “Yeah, we are friends, but I have not heard a word from Tony. If he asks you, tell him I’m around.
“Hypothetically, if I wanted to go to work at AEW, I would go to [McMahon] and say, ‘I wanna do this because I wanna get back in the ring and I know you don’t like that. I wanna be able to do something, I wanna get knocked down or something.’ And he’d say to me. ‘Ultimately what’s best for you is best for me.’
Flair went on to say that he “absolutely wants to get back in the ring and entertain the fans. “The Nature Boy” then shut down the notion that he could come back for one more match, though he noted that he could get physical as part of a match, like he did at AAA’s TripleMania show last month.
Looking back on his departure from WWE, Flair also shared some of his conversation with McMahon when he left. Much like he said he loves McMahon during his promo at NWA 73, “The Nature Boy” described how he told McMahon they’d always be brothers.
“I talked to Vince, after it was over, and I just said, ‘Whatever paths our lives take us, we’re always gonna be brothers,” said Flair. “He said you’re damn right.”
RELATED: Ric Flair On His Post-WWE Career: ‘I’m Going Out To Pursue The Things I Want’
Earlier in the podcast, Flair also explained how his exit from the company was “misunderstood,” as he emphasized his previous comments that he simply wanted to explore some opportunities that wouldn’t have been possible if he stayed with WWE.
“What happened was, I had a bunch of pending opportunities,” said Flair. ” And I had a bunch of things that I was doing currently at the time that I signed my contract. They allowed those. They gave me, I got to keep Cameo, a couple other things, and then a couple deals kept coming along that I got to a point where I was asking them, I think I probably exhausted them asking not to grandfather them in but to let me do them.
“And then of course the answer was, ‘You can do them maybe.’ And I thought of what I was gonna say to you today and how could I handle this. I just decided that I wanted to finally, which I did for three years, make a living not [just] being on a wrestling payroll.”
The full interview is available here: