January 11

There have been several documentaries on the professional wrestler known as “The Nature Boy” Ric Flair. This was an ESPN 30 on 30 documentary that had him as a subject, that aired in 2017 called Nature Boy.

This was an interesting doc looking at Flair, but it did feel as if the negative parts of his life were brushed away, outside of the death of his son Reid. They mentioned parts of his life that came along with the persona of the nature Boy, but they did not go into a great deal of explanation on it. The touched on his legendary drinking, but not with a lot of specifics. They touched on his legal troubles with Jim Herd of WCW, but did not go into details. The match between Hulk Hogan and Ric Flair that was intended on being the main event of Wrestlemania VIII was mentioned, but nothing specific was revealed. These moments really form the man who would be Ric Flair and I would have liked more about them all.

They did a pretty decent job with his early days, and gave some solid info on the Verne Gagne training that Ric Flair went through. The infamous plane crash that broke his back got some time, though, again, I think they did not focus much on this seminal moment of the young Flair’s life.

It was kind of scary when the doc talked about how it was amazing that Ric Flair was still alive with the amount of drinking, and I thought it would lead to the time when Flair nearly died from his drinking. However, I believe that happened after this documentary was filmed, so it turned out to be prophetic than anything else.

The details on Reid Flair’s death was some of the most emotional moments of the doc as you can clearly see how his son’s death affected him and it was nice to see him reacting to his daughter Ashley, known in the WWE as Charlotte Flair, and her massive success.

It felt like this doc just scratched the surface of the life and times of The Nature Boy Ric Flair and that they needed way more than 30 on 30 to do it justice.