A Part Of Ric Flair Wishes He Would Have Not Gone Back To WCW After WrestleMania IX

Despite being one of the names chiefly associated with WCW, "The Nature Boy" Ric Flair's relationship with the Atlanta organization had always been a complicated and not-always rosy one. Flair left WCW in the early '90s, spending a couple of years in the then-WWF before returning to WCW, where despite a few years of business highs, the company folded and Flair was back in the WWE by the turn of the century. 

On the most recent episode of "To Be The Man," Flair looked back on his single WrestleMania appearance at WrestleMania VIII, noting that he didn't appear at WrestleMania IX because he knew that he'd be featured in a less prominent position as the main event quickly became crowded with Bret Hart, Yokozuna, and Hulk Hogan.

"I would've been in a demoted role. Vince came up to me and said, 'Watch your back,'" essentially telling Flair to reach out to his contacts in the WCW office in Atlanta. This led to Flair having a "Loser Leaves Town Match" on one of the early episodes of "WWE Raw," which Flair lost. "I almost wish I'd stayed because [WCW] was such a disaster when I got back."

The two-time Hall of Famer says that he can't believe how much talent WCW had by the time the company was purchased by WWE in 2001, less than ten years after Flair returned to the company. From there Flair came back to WWE in 2002, finally retiring for the first time in 2008, before coming back and wrestling for Impact Wrestling, finally retiring in 2022 in a tag team match.