10 Things WWE Wants You To Forget About Ric Flair

3. His Performance At The 2013 WWE 2K14 Video Game Launch Was Embarrassing

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2WHgfvsPEMo It seemed like a simple idea to have Ric Flair join the likes of Steve Austin, Rey Mysterio, Daniel Bryan, Paul Heyman, Dolph Ziggler, Mick Foley and Jim Ross among others at the WWE 2K14 video game launch last August. It's something that WWE does every year around SummerSlam time as a way to get members of the media together to report on WWE's latest video game. Flair got in a lot of trouble during the symposium when he appeared to be incoherent at times due to possibly consuming too much alcohol. It should be noted that the event was held shortly after the death of his son Reid, so Flair likely wasn't in the best state of mind at that point. He went off script many times, he swore a bunch of times by uttering the word "s**t" when telling his stories and Ross showed his frustration during a lot of it because Flair kept going off script. You could tell Ross was laughing about some of it, but it was likely frustrating him too. Due to Flair's behavior, Ross got a lot of heat from the situation. He ended up getting fired from WWE although they were gracious enough to call it a retirement. They're still selling Ross' BBQ sauces on WWE.com so it's not like they have completely ignored him, but he was still reprimanded for what happened. It probably didn't help that Flair mentioned TNA too. Ross said that won't make the edit and Flair said he didn't care. That was likely around the point where WWE officials were getting upset. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uehbkWFwA_M Ross explained his role in the incident on Grantland.com in January: "It was a very unique night, to say the least. Ric was coming off maybe the most traumatic time of his life. In hindsight, it might not have been the most timely booking, to get him in that environment. And then you can look at the other side and say maybe it€™s a good thing to get him out around friends. As it worked out, you€™d probably lean more to the former than the latter. But here€™s the deal: I was conductor of a runaway train. I was supposed to keep it on the tracks and that didn€™t happen. So I don€™t have any issues taking responsibility. Did I envision that it would help facilitate my exit? No. But I could see the thinking behind it." Flair gave his side of the story on Steve Austin's podcast the day after the symposium: "I don't know what happened last night. They told me to entertain 'em and I did. But apparently it wasn't received the way it was supposed to be. The people running the game loved it but the problem is corporate WWE gets mad at me, number one, which upsets me because I love the company and respect them so much. I guess we just drifted and told stories and they wanted the focus of the evening to be about the game." After watching the video of it, what Flair said on that stage really wasn't that bad and Ross did a fine job of hosting it, but it's understandable why WWE had a problem with it too. It's just a shame that it led to WWE's relationship straining with Ross and Flair. It took WWE a few months before they used Flair on their programming again.