Goldsboro, NC-
Publishers
of
professional wrestler Ric Flair's autobiography Ric Flair: To Be
The Man
have announced that Flair will be canceling the Southeastern leg of his
book
tour after a string of altercations with over-zealous fans.
The announcement comes on the heels of an incident at a Rocky Mount, NC bookstore in which a fan caught Flair in a full-Nelson and held it for nearly forty-five minutes while the other fans, forgoing autographs, lined up to strike Flair about the head, face, and chest with hardcover editions of the ghost-written memoir.
According to Flair's publicist Renee Dodson, it was a turn of events that has become all too common. "We weren't experiencing these types of incidents in the Northeast," she said, "but ever since the tour left Richmond, fans see Ric Flair and the first thing they want to do is put him in some sort of wrestling hold or bash him over the head with a folding chair. We understand that it is just these fans' way of showing Ric that they are familiar with his work, but, from a logistical standpoint, its been problematic."
A few fans have had less amiable motives for battering Flair. At a recent book-signing held in a Goldsboro, NC Walmart, shopper Jim LaRoy became agitated when he opened the book’s dust jacket and found that Flair’s trademark yell “wooooo” literally bore a trademark symbol. “I been yelling ‘wooooo’ every time I get six or eight beers in me for the past fifteen years, and my daddy before me done the same,” LaRoy said. “I don’t appreciate Flair trying to wrangle away a piece of my heritage.” “But the nice thing,” he added, “is that with Flair, I can come down here and we can take our shirts off and settle this [intellectual property dispute] like men. Wooooo!”
Other fans have no particular beef with Flair, but simply wish to test their mettle against one of wrestling’s greats. Sam Pratt, an area property manager, was one such fan. “To be the man, you have to beat the man,” Pratt said, quoting a Ric Flair catchphrase. “Well, I’m ready to be the man, wooooo!” He asserted as he dribbled tobacco juice into an empty Mountain Dew bottle. “What I do, I watch each WWE event once straight through, but at the same time I’m taping it on the VCR so I can go back with the slo-mo and such and really break it down. I think Flair and the rest of the folks here at Walden Books took me for a patsy once they seen how pale and hairy I looked in them jockey shorts, but I done my homework. I think Flair would tell you that he got more than he bargained for out of me.”
“What we are seeing is exactly what we would expect to see based on
Bandura’s classic
studies of aggression,” said Duke University psychology professor
Steven
Grenman. “Fans see Ric Flair and other pro wrestlers on television
modeling
all sorts of flamboyant and aggressive behaviors. Then, when they
encounter
him in real life, they feel that they have free reign to behave in the
same
manner.”
What these fans need to understand, says Flair’s publicist Dodson, is that Ric Flair is a 55 year-old man and the years he spent in the ring have left him with the arthritic joints of a man in his nineties.
News of Flair's severe rheumatism, however, only caused fans to self-narrate their manhandling of him with such commentary as "Oh my, look at him testing the arthritis-stricken verty-brates of Flair" and "Oh, what's this? Billy Lee is just flat-out going to town on that weared-out hip cartilage".
“As much
as Ric enjoys and appreciates his Southeastern fan base,” Dodson said,
“his body
simply couldn’t endure another month of this book tour.”