All right here we go...
It's summer of 1980 (yes nineteen-eighty) and I am still living in my "hometown" of Winston-Salem, NC. It's a Saturday night and earlier in the evening at the Winston-Salem Memorial Coliseum Ric Flair has battled Chief Wahoo McDaniels for the MACW belt. Mid-Atlantic Championship Wrestling. Back then Flair was ALWAYS a heal aka a bad guy and Chief Wahoo McDaniels was always a babyface aka a good guy. We did not attend the matches.
We were however at a bar very close to the venue, The Safari Room. Also, remember that in 1980 you could drink alcohol when you were 18 years old in North Carolina. Me and my EIGHT friends were all either 18 or 19 years old.
Around 11:00-11:30pm we had all left the Safari Room and walked across the street to a Stop n' Go convenience store. A White Cadillac limo pulled into the parking lot. We were all walking across the parking lot, heading back towards the Safari Room...
...The limo driver opened the passenger door and Ric Flair got out. It was Ric and two girls, I believe. Flair and the limo driver were putting drinks into a cooler I seem to remember- so it was the driver, Ric Flair and two girls standing close together filling their cooler. We started yelling obscenities at Flair almost at once. He was a "bad guy" and nobody ever liked the bag guy way back then. There was NINE of us. Me and eight friends. All former High School wrestlers and/or football players and now home from college for summer.
Well for about five minutes we insulted Flair. He just smiled, gave us the finger but didn't seemed too concerned. Suddenly someone in my group said something about the girls Flair was with. I looked up and Flair was in a full sprint charging across the parking lot at all NINE of us. Remember in 1980 Flair was probably 28-30 years old and a legit bad ass. Here we go!
For some reason I was a few steps closer to Flair then my friends. I was not any tougher, I was just a little bit closer. I think I assumed a wrestling stance and was waiting for Flair to close the distance. Hell, ..."Three of us could shoot low, three could shoot high and three guys could stay close for back up, right? What could go wrong. There's NINE of us. Well...
...When Flair was about 15 feet away, I looked to my left... nobody was there. I looked to my right... nobody was there. All EIGHT of my friends were running away! They were all in full sprint running away! I was the only one there. I heard my friend Steve Peterson yell, "Run Tom run!!!" I turned to run... too late. Flair was on me.
to be continued...
OK, lets end this fight.
Flair was on me! He grabbed my shirt collar with one hand and started throwing overhand rights. Now kids, all I wanted to do was disengage. All I wanted to do was get away. All I wanted to do was break free and run! I did the duck and spin and twist move. Flair's punches were grazing my head and shoulder. Luckily he never connected solidly. As soon as I broke his grip off my shirt... I turned and ran as fast as I could, I ran in the direction my friends had run. They had all stopped running and were watching me and Ric Flair scrap. I ran across the parking lot in world record time.
When I caught my friends we all turned around and looked at Flair. He was not chasing. Flair and his limo driver and the girls were ALL laughing so hard! All by himself Ric Flair chased off NINE guys.
On a positive note- for years, I was known as the "crazy fucker who fought Ric Flair." LOL!
In 1993 I met Ric Flair while working at Golds Venice. Ric was a Gold's franchise owner and we became friends. I told Ric the story one day. He smiled and laughed as I told the tale and then he said... "Tom, I believe every single word you are saying but I really do not remember that incident... remember Tom, way back then I was always a bad guy- and everyone hated me. I was fighting all the time... Waffle House, Pizza Hut, Red Lobster. I couldn't go out in public without someone yelling at me and starting a fight."
There ya go. Rick Flair vs Tommywishbone for the title. Flair retained the title. The end.
