ESPN ’30 For 30′ Director Says How They Handled Ric Flair Exposing Himself Was A Mistake

Ric Flair’s name was heavily featured in the Plane Ride From Hell episode of Dark Side of the Ring. Flair was painted in a very negative light, but that wasn’t he first time stories of Flair exposing himself were told. WWE even pulled down an episode of Story Time that took a humorous look at Flair’s antics on a plane.

ESPN 30 For 30 director Rory Karpf recently spoke to Wrestling Inc about Ric Flair’s portrayal in Dark Side of the Ring. He praised the Vice series before going into how he had never heard any stories about Ric Flair forcing a flight attendant to touch himself while he was only wearing his signature robe.

“I’d never heard that he had forced someone to touch his genitals. Everything with Ric that was construed as negative I tried to address in the 30 for 30. His drinking, his philandering, his adultery, his money problems, there’s quite a bit, but never, at least in the people that I spoke to, no one ever brought up that he would force himself on somebody. I did hear about him exposing himself, which to me is still troubling, very troubling behavior, and that is addressed in the 30 for 30.”

He later admitted that mistakes were likely made when it came to how Ric Flair’s antics were presented in the docuseries.

“I saw there was an article on Deadspin about it, and I read it today and I think it’s a pretty valid criticism of the film. Some of the wrestlers kind of jokingly talk about it, that he would expose himself, and in our story, he was exposing himself to the wrestlers, but there’s another story in the 30 for 30 where Greg Gagne talks about him doing it at a fraternity house to girls that were coming up.”

“And that’s kind of told humorously as well, but as the director, I’m kind of responsible for the tone, and the tone is humorous. So it’s something, when I look back on it, I would say I think it’s a mistake that I made, or if we went with that, we should show the antithesis of the results of that kind of behavior, which we did in other areas of Ric’s life in the film.”

“He jokes a lot in the film about just being a philanderer, but then you see the results of that from talking to his children and his ex wife, and you see that there’s victims to this kind of lifestyle. His drinking, people call him out on some of this behavior. It was important for me at the time, if somebody looked at that behavior, including Ric — sometimes he would tell a story and smile, but then you see the other side of that, and as a filmmaker, that’s what I tried to do is give kind of both sides or leave things maybe a little ambiguous and let the viewer figure it out.”

Ric Flair’s name was pulled from the New York Comic Con. His CarShield commercials were also paused until further notice. We’ll have to see if he ever makes his way to AEW, but fans are also calling for Tony Khan to never bring in the Nature Boy after that episode.

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