Ric Flair Isn't Giving Up on Wrestling One More Time in WWE

Ric Flair appeared on Busted Open Radio this week to discuss celebrating his 72nd birthday and his recent activity on WWE television. "The Nature Boy" has been back on Raw on a consistent basis since January, working as a manager (and sometimes implied to be more) with Lacey Evans while simultaneously enraging his daughter Charlotte Flair. The storyline was dropped shortly after Evans announced she was pregnant with her second child, and some fans heaved a sigh of relief when Flair and Charlotte made it abundantly clear that they weren't going forward with a storyline where Ric might be the father.

Flair said the idea for the program caught him off guard at first, but he was happy to be back on television.

"It caught us off guard," Flair said (h/t WrestlingNews.co). "It was presented to me. I think it was just a trial run and nobody really understood for sure exactly what was going to go. I would be remiss if I thought Ashley (Charlotte) was crazy about it. For me, I pretty much can pull off anything I want. I'm really good at doing things if I like the program and understand it, but, at the same time, it's hard to be in a program against someone in your family, especially your daughter when everybody knows you're so proud of her and you've been so positive towards her in you're thinking and you're so happy for her success.

"It kind of caught me off guard, but, on one side of me, I'm flattered they gave me the opportunity to even be on TV," he added. "Number two, it started out a little rough and I think it was smoothing out. She (Lacey Evans) got pregnant. She's a beautiful girl. I don't know her that well, but what I know of her, she's just a genuinely nice person. I've met her husband. I've met her daughter who they had on TV a little bit over on SmackDown, but, it happened and I'm sure we were just at the point we were really going to make it work."

He then mentioned that, despite just turning 72 and being only a few years removed from a serious health scare, the 16-time world champion is still trying to find ways to get back inside the ring and compete.

"My problem was, they won't let me get in the ring because it's so hard to get me cleared because of my health issues, even though I have been cleared by my doctors," he said. "I just don't think they're prepared to let me get in the ring in case something happened. I could have 40 releases, but, it would be that, why the hell are you doing that? Why the hell are you letting him do that? I actually wanted to put sweat clothes on and work out with her, which I thought would have been great and teach her some things and actually have her emulate my character, doing the flips, suplex in, turn around, begging off. I had it all written down, but they wouldn't let me get in the ring. I had the master plan. It would have been fun. It never came to fruition and I'm happy that things worked out like they did, especially for her because I think she was upset, a little bit, but then she said, 'Hey, I'm having a baby. This is what's supposed to happen. I'm young. I have a beautiful daughter and now I've got a second one on the way.' Everybody wants to be on TV, but, in this case, if she's not going to be on TV for a while, it's for a very wonderful reason that we're all aware of."