Posted in: Opinion, Sports, TV, TV, WWE, YouTube | Tagged: dark side of the ring, opinion, ric flair, rob van dam, season 3, The Plane Ride from Hell, wwe

Ric Flair "Live Your Truth" Exactly the Lousy Response We Expected

Fallout and reactions continue from flight attendant Heidi Doyle's allegations addressed during Evan Husney & Jason Eisener and Vice TV's Dark Side of the Ring episode "The Plane Ride From Hell" that professional wrestler Ric Flair exposed himself to her and made her touch his genitals. Yesterday, we reported on wrestler Rob Van Dam attempting to clarify some of his comments that included his saying that he never actually saw Flair's genitals or the act in question, and called Husney & Eisener's editing into question. Flair jumped on the report as if it was a form of vindication from the allegations. Well, needless to say, a whole lot of social media disagreed and called out Flair for not seeing so many of the "big picture" issues involved.

This morning, it appeared Flair was looking to put an exclamation point on the topic by posting an image of himself with the words, "Live Your Truth!". How's that being received? About as well as his last post, and can you blame them? Don't we already have too many people "living their own truth" already? Our hospitals are crowded right now with folks who are literally dying from "living their own truth" for too long. But instead of looking at a situation nearly two decades later and saying, "You know what? I wasn't living my best life back then, as many of you know. So to Ms. Doyle, I apologize for anything and everything that you had o go through and I put you through." But instead, we have people building walls of their "own truths" and nothing gets better. Because as long as he has a single breath left for a faint, "Whooooo!", folks are willing to formulate their own "truths" to help them sleep at night. Or look themselves in the mirror. You can check out Flair's tweet here.

Here's a look back at Flair's previous Twitter statement:

About four years ago, I gave ESPN full access to my life for a '30 for 30' special. They covered taxes, financial issues, adultery, divorces, the passing of my child and drinking/partying AT LENGTH."

Rory Kampf, desperate to matter for another 15 minutes, did an interview about it this morning. When Rory's lips are moving, he's typically lying, but one part of what he said was the God's honest truth:

'I'd never heard that he had forced someone to touch his genitals,' Karpf admitted. 'Everything with Ric that was construed as negative I tried to address in the '30 for 30'. His drinking, his philandering, his adultery, his money problems, there's quite a bit, but never, at least in the people that I spoke to, no one ever brought up that he would force himself on somebody.'

I allowed my personal life and the lives of my wife and children to be turned upside down for one reason: Whether it's good or bad, even the really bad, the truth has to matter. Even in wrestling.

My issues have been well documented over my 40+ year career. The impact of drinking too much (which nearly killed me 5 years ago) has been told time and time and time again. The reason Rory (or anyone else for that matter) never heard stories of me forcing myself on ANYONE is simple: it never happened.

During an interview with 30 for 30: Nature Boy director Rory Karpf, Karpf was asked about the allegations but the director denied having heard of Flair forcing himself onto others. "I'd never heard that he had forced someone to touch his genitals," Karpf revealed. "Everything with Ric that was construed as negative I tried to address in the '30 for 30'. His drinking, his philandering, his adultery, his money problems, there's quite a bit, but never, at least in the people that I spoke to, no one ever brought up that he would force himself on somebody. I did hear about him exposing himself, which to me is still troubling, very troubling behavior, and that is addressed in the '30 for 30'."

"I was in the galley… Ric Flair was naked in a cape only, and then he decided to come back to the galley to get a coke, and then he wouldn't leave the galley. He had me up against the back door, and I couldn't move," Doyle related during the docuseries episode. "I couldn't get away from him… I couldn't… I couldn't move. He was spinning around his penis and he wanted me to touch it. He took my hand and put it on him."

It should be noted (as it was by the producers) that Flair had denied the allegations in the past and that a settlement was reached at the time between Doyle and the professional wrestling company. On a recent edition of Renee Paquette's Oral Sessions podcast before the episode aired, Flair appeared to come across more as the victim when asked about the incident and the then-upcoming docuseries episode on it. "God, I've heard about it too. Just when things are going good for me," Flair responded. But he also appeared to be putting the word out there that "if the heat falls" on him, he's ready to bring some folks down with him. "We'll see how it plays out because I was there and I don't care whose name I gotta drop if the heat falls on me. I know who was where and what and who and what took place. I know the whole story."

Following up on his initial social media statement, Flair released the following follow-up statement to Wrestling Inc.: "To clarify, the 'helicopter' as it was called, is accurate. I wish I could blame it on youth, but it was a case of drinking too much and being inappropriate and I apologize for that (and have countless times over the years). I made some bad decisions during dark periods in my life, and it is something I've spent a significant part of years I was given by the doctors in 2017 trying to make right. I condemn sexual assault in any way, shape or form. I could (and have) written books (as have others) that have covered my transgressions. I've made some terrible decisions, but I've never forced myself on anyone in any way. Period."

Van Dam took to Twitter in an attempt to clarify some of his comments from the episode as well as assumptions he feels people have taken from them. Over the course of two tweets, Van Dam stated that he's never seen Flair's genitals and that his use of the phrase, "trying to make her touch him" was a reference to the overall space they were in and how Flair's body was "crowding her space."

"Just watched DSOTR. Heavy. Some insight for those who can handle it- 1) I haven't seen Ric Flair's dick. My comment about fans shouldn't see him doing the helicopter was a response to DSOTR telling me that's what they were told. They shouldn't. I don't want to see it either. 2) I said "trying to make her touch him" referring to his body crowding her space and her backing up like bad breath was in her face. I thought maybe they were playing (from seeing a similar scene at the hotel bar)but I wasn't interested in naked Ric. Still ain't. I tried to sleep," Van Dam wrote in his initial two tweets (you can check out the screencaps below).

From there, Van Dam addressed several folks on Twitter who were questioning if Van Dam was adjusting his story from what aired on Dark Side of the Ring:

In response, Flair took to Twitter to call out Van Dam for what Flair feels were assumptions that Van Dam attempted to pass off as facts during the episode:

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