I don’t know why I like it. I guess I just do. I love professional wrestling. So I really love meeting professional wrestlers. My favorite happens to be the one who the Bad Kids root for, the sixteen time Heavyweight Champion of the world, Nature Boy Rick Flair. This guy made a career of sleeping with groupies and staying up all night drinking. He is truly a bad kid. My good friend Victor who is currently working for World Wrestling Entertainment was kind enough to invite me to the Ringsidefest wrestling convention in Times Square the day after Halloween. Victor was able to procure a pair of VIP passes.

I was up at 9:00AM and way hung over but I knew Flair probably hadn’t gone to sleep yet. If I was going to be one of the Horseman I had to tough it out. I made it over to Caroline’s on Broadway between 49th and 50th which was way classier than a gym or a Knights of Columbus, where they usually hold wrestling conventions. I met up with Vic and they gave us our passes. While we were waiting they put on Starcade 93 headlined by Ric Flair vs Vader for the WCW Heavyweight title.

Then we watched classic Flair promos from new WWE Flair DVD. In the middle of a promo Flair’s manager got on the mic and said Ric was ready to come out. The people in the audience begged him to let the promo end before they brought Ric out. When the promo concludes Ric comes out to his music. The entire audience is on their feet bowing to Flair. He in turns bows back to everyone. When the applause dies down Ric thanks everyone for coming and lets out a couple signature “wooo’s.” When I got to meet him he signed the wonderful photo I purchased from the merchandise table. I told him he was the greatest of all time and he shook my hand. He even flashed the Horseman sign when we posed for a photo. This made me the happiest boy in the world.

Now it was time for the Q&A. Sometimes these can be lame with wrestlers because they try to pretend that wrestling is real which is retarded. There would be none of that from Ric. He took everyone’s questions very seriously. My favorite question was about the “new generation” of up and coming talent. Ric was saying how he sees a great deal of potential in his younger son and he has taken a person interest in training him. He added that Ricky Steamboat was also training his own son. Maybe we’ll get Flair Steamboat version 2 down the road. At one point Ric was warned that time was running out “Don’t worry I’m going to answer all the questions.” Ric is a true class act. I will definitely come back to Ringsidefest next year. Since that is one year away I encourage everyone to go to their website and buy wrestling toys from them.

http://www.ringsidecollectibles.com