Ben ⚔

Ric Flair owed the IRS $230,000 in 1992. Vince McMahon covered it after one phone call. With Flair back at the same bar where he fell and ended up in the hospital days earlier, his old Valuetainment interview is making the rounds again. In 1992, he was in Tokyo. He couldn't sleep. "I was drinking myself to death." So he called his boss with one question: "Can I have 230 grand?" Vince said yes. The IRS got paid. Then came 2005 and the divorce. Vince lent him $800,000, paid out bit by bit over three years. That's roughly $267,000 a year, to "pay the lawyer, pay my ex-wife to live." In total, that's more than $1 million going from Vince to one wrestler. The line that stuck with the loan: "I wouldn't lend my own son this damn money." Then Vince offered him an out: "If you want to go upside down, I won't hold it against you." Flair says he didn't take it. "I paid him back every time… So I'll pat myself on the back for that." He was 40 when he came to Vince, and he says he brought "a lot of talent" and was "easy to get along with." Years later, when Flair was sick, Vince FaceTimed him and called his wife Wendy every day. Hear him tell it. Loyal boss, or a legend who should never have needed a $1 million lifeline?