Interview: Ric Flair on Remembering Jim Neidhart & His 2nd WWF Title Reign

Wrestling Inc. held a recent interview with Ric Flair discussing his memories of Jim “The Anvil” Neidhart and his second WWF Championship reign being cut short.

On the topic of Jim “The Anvil” Neidhart, Flair stated he was a great guy and someone who was a lot more athletic than shown in the ring.

“He was just a great guy. I got to know Jim in the WWE, we were there at different time frames, but he legitimately was a world-class athlete. I mean he threw the shot put at UCLA close to seventy feet. He played for the Raiders, he was a 500-pound bench presser any day of the week. He was like Kerry Von Erich, it didn’t matter what he was doing or how much he drank or how late he stayed out he could bench press 500 pounds.

He was that legitimate and I don’t think you got a true picture of his athleticism in wrestling because he didn’t have to use it. You talk about another tough guy, nobody said s–t to Jim Neidhart, trust me. He probably couldn’t amateur wrestle a lick, but I guarantee you nobody in the Hart Foundation or up in that school that Stu [Hart] had gave Neidhart any s–t.”

On the topic of his second WWF Championship reign, Flair stated it was originally planned to last longer but was cut short due to suffering a head injury against The Ultimate Warrior one night.

“That’s because The Warrior and I were in Pheonix, Arizona and The Warrior suplexed me and he just wasn’t — nothing against him personally, but that’s not what he did and he dropped me on my head and I had that inner ear problem.

I remember [Charles] Barkley was there, he came to watch me wrestle and when I rolled out onto the floor, I said to Earl Hebner, ‘man I can’t get up.’ I had this thing for almost a year, I can’t think of the name of it [vertigo], but it’s an ear thing where when I would take a bump, my equilibrium would leave me for maybe as long as twenty seconds.

While discussing more on his second WWF Championship reign, Flair stated his non-televised title loss to Bret Hart at a house show was due to the WWF being aware of his injury and him desperately needing time off to recover.

The company was aware of [my injury] and they called me and I went up to Calgary where I wrestled the worst match for Bret because I couldn’t do anything. I mean, I could go through the motions but it was like half-speed. I’m glad they don’t play it. I couldn’t do anything, but back then you didn’t give an explanation for it, it was a different time. It’s not like ‘[hey] he’s got an equilibrium problem.'”