Ric Flair discussed today’s WWE stars being scripted during an appearance on the Two Man Power Trip Of Wrestling podcast.
“You can tell a mile away whether the kids feel it or not. It’s a lot of pressure to read something that you don’t naturally feel in your heart. That’s a big difference. I mean, you could tell the guys that they really take off because they’re taking what they’ve been handed to memorize and then they put some emotion into it. But that’s just talking generically today. That doesn’t sell tickets. When The Rock comes back and wrestles Roman, that’ll sell tickets. When Steve Austin came back, that sold tickets. It’s just a different timeframe. The talent is great, make no mistake, there’s some great wrestlers, Orton, my daughter [Charlotte Flair], Sasha Banks, Styles, like there’s a list of great, probably 10 between the two companies. But the events sell themselves now as much as the wrestlers do. I don’t think they turn them loose enough. I know that they want to make sure they get the right advertisers. Everybody has to be happy.”
“It’s a whole different world, but I still love it. I just feel like the guys that are really great like Randy and my daughter are held back because they [WWE] don’t want them to go that far. They don’t want anybody to become The Rock again that’s going to walk off. They don’t want somebody like Steve that could say, ‘I don’t want to do it.’ Back in the day, Hulk could say yes or no. He had that kind of power. I don’t know if that’s healthy, but Vince won’t let that happen again.”
You can check out the interview below:
