Ric Flair vents about WWE's 'lack of respect' after alleged WrestleMania snub: 'Not even a call'

Ric Flair is not happy with WWE. The 77-year-old pro-wrestling legend vented on Wednesday’s “The Ariel Helwani Show” after what he perceived to be a less-than-welcoming weekend in Las Vegas for this year’s WrestleMania 42 spectacle.

Flair, a two-time WWE Hall of Famer, claimed that he “wasn’t allowed to go” to WWE’s annual two-night event this year due to an alleged altercation in 2025 with Ludwig Kaiser, the former boyfriend of WWE star Tiffany Stratton. Flair said he “threatened to beat up” Kaiser last year amid a dispute between Stratton and Flair’s daughter, 14-time WWE champion Charlotte Flair, ahead of their WrestleMania 41 title match.

Flair’s account of the situation:

“I didn’t get invited to WrestleMania this year. I threatened to beat up Tiffany Stratton’s [boyfriend] last year and I wasn’t allowed to go. A 24-year-old kid being threatened by a 76-year-old man, and I can’t go to WrestleMania? Are you kidding me?

“I went OK, ‘I need your number,’ and I got it — which, I can get any number that I want any minute of any day. And I called [Kaiser] and I said, ‘Hey, when I see you, I’m going to beat the s*** out of you.’ So he went like a little b****, told Hunter [WWE CCO Paul Levesque], and I wasn’t allowed to go.”

“Even though I’m not there, I know everything because I know everybody. There should a red carpet for me — a red carpet to the front row. And I talked to them about it. With my contributions to this business and the work that I’ve put in, hours and hours and hours of trying to make wrestling something that it is today, and I’ve got to have problems with politics? Give me a break. Come on. I’m not mad at anybody, I understand it’s politics now — it’s too much politics and not enough wrestling.”

Flair also claimed that Dennis Rodman personally requested him to give an induction speech for the former NBA star’s entry into the WWE Hall of Fame, however Flair was unable to do so after allegedly getting the cold shoulder from WWE officials.

“Dennis Rodman called me and said, ‘Will you induct me in the Hall of Fame?’ And I sent to the powers that be, ‘Dennis wants me to induct him.’ I never got a call back. … I never even got a call back.”

“I think there’s a lack of respect. And I think there’s so many people under fire right now, they’re all ducking and dodging.”

“I don’t know. All I know is that it seems like people, they hate the fact that I’m so relevant. They hate the fact that signed more autographs this weekend at WrestleCon than anybody. They hate the fact that I did a pool party with 3,000 beautiful women with Diplo.”