Ric Flair’s multi-year contract with AEW raises several questions

Ric Flair has a multi-year deal with AEW and fans immediately responded with a critical eye to the promotion and Tony Khan. 

Variety and many other sources reported yesterday that Ric Flair’s energy drink company, “Woooooooo! Energy” signed a multi-year deal with AEW. This means that the energy drink will be publicly displayed and advertised during televised AEW programming and will even be seen on the commentary table.

Last week, Ric Flair shocked the world when he made his groundbreaking debut on AEW’s weekly show, Dynamite. The Nature Boy returned as a gift to Sting from AEW CEO, Tony Kahn. The segment turned into a grueling confrontation led by the current TNT champion, Christian Cage.

Soon after, it would be announced that Adam Copeland would team with Sting and Darby Allin at Full Gear, aiding two friends in their mission to defend the 16x World Champion. Along with Christian Cage will be Luchasouras and Nick Wayne. What first appeared as a harmless reunion between two legends soon saw Ric Flair entangled in one of AEW’s biggest storylines between Adam Copeland and Christian Cage.

Fresh off another hostile in-ring encounter, few people expected the Nature Boy to shock the world again with the announcement of his brand partnership with AEW. Flair had been absent from WWE for some time now. Regardless of his daughter’s involvement and success with the company, Flair chooses to do appearances for other platforms and seemingly keep an arm’s distance from WWE.

There is no doubt that Ric Flair is a marquee attraction. He’s arguably the greatest professional wrestler of all time and he will always have a fanbase. However, there may be a reason why Flair has stayed off of pro wrestling TV for so long. Pro wrestling is all about staying in character and working the gimmick. Understanding that trash talk and insults will occur is obviously part of the job. Flair has never had a problem grasping that concept, until just recently.

Aside from the pro wrestling arena, Ric appeared on a live audience podcast known as Kill Tony. During this podcast, contestants will come up to the stage and each performs 60 seconds of stand-up comedy. If the contestant simply wasn’t funny, they would be roasted by Host, Tony Hinchcliffe and his guests on the Panel.

During an episode a month ago, Ric was a guest on the panel and was seemingly out of touch with the vibe of the show. He also was slurring his words and rambled on with stories for quite a while. Tony mentioned multiple times that Flair had been drinking quite a bit before the episode (not a huge shock.) Worst of all, The other guests roasting the guests visibly angered the Nature Boy. While Tony tried to explain to him that’s just how the show worked, Ric refused to be a part of it and ultimately walked off.

One might think that a man who made a whole career out of cutting vicious promos would understand the allowance of trash talk during a performance of any kind. There could have been a few reasons for Flair’s scene on the show. His drinking, of course, and also it could be that time could be catching up with him.

Regardless, the main concern is that the Kill Tony episode was not a good look for Flair. If Flair were to go off script and make a similar scene in an AEW ring during a promo battle, you better hope there’s someone in there with him who can work accordingly.

Consequently, the mistakes that Ric might make on TV could reflect how the partnership goes as well. While there’s plenty of money to be made from this deal, one might question the stability of the deal if Flair’s status on the weekly show became a little rocky, especially if Flair ever were to take creative matters a little too personally.

Nevertheless, The partnership will do great for Flair’s company, and will most likely stay on AEW programming for a long time to come as long as he can still remain competent in the company. Additionally, Flair will need to make sure not to harbor any hard feelings against AEW in the future if they make the decision to withhold him from television.