Original subtitles

- The Four Horsemen-

Ole and Arn, Tully and Ric masterminded by JJ

You know what?

We can walk the aisle.

- Wow.

It brings back some great memories

of a magical time in the business.

Because we say diamonds are forever,

and so are The Four Horsemen.

That is the living truth.

We each individually

were at the top of our game.

You put us all together.

Basically, we ruled the roost.

- We are the best there is.

We are The Horsemen.

Four guys that can work and talk.

Custom-made.

- Ric Flair, he was very colorful.

- Arn and Ole Anderson, the original bad guys.

- Tully Blanchard was so smart, so good.

It was magic.

- We're one unit.

We're The Four Horsemen.

Full blown gang, we were pushing the envelope.

- They wanted us arrested for assault.

- They made everybody believe The Four Horsemen

were the strongest faction in wrestling.

- We are-

what's happening?

This.

- The symbol of excellence.

- This is what being a Horseman is all about.

- As a kid, you're looking up and you're like,

"Oh, man, this dude's so [bleep] cool."

- The lifestyle of the rich and the famous.

- They were intentionally obnoxious.

Like the greed of the 1980s.

- We got the women, the money, the limos.

We got it all.

- Being flamboyant and being on top of your game.

- The Horsemen rule, raid and make professional wrestling just

exactly what it is today.

- We felt like we were the best.

There was a lack of respect.

- I got really mad one time and quit.

And then he quit with me.

- You can't lose the foundation and expect

the building to stand.

- I just had lost my self-confidence so bad.

- The arm just went numb and I knew instantly you're done.

But had the time of my life.

- The Four Horsemen.

[yelling]

- Yes.

- Woo.

- I don't know that there has ever been a greater group

of guys that influenced this business.

- To this day, the greatest faction that's ever existed.

?

- These are Anderson boots,

Minnesota colors,

maroon and gold.

It's a different feel.

It's almost like you have an advantage

because you're an Anderson.

That started with Lars and Gene and moved to Gene and Ole,

and Ole passed it on down to me.

It, uh, changed my career.

If it wasn't for the Andersons, there wouldn't be

The Four Horsemen.

The foundation all began with the Andersons.

Ole was born Alan Rogowski.

Then he became Ole Anderson,

and it was like he stepped into someone else's body.

- From Minnesota, at a combined wrestling weight 520 pounds,

Gene and Ole Anderson.

- I grew up in Chesapeake, Virginia watching Mid-Atlantic

Championship Wrestling with my dad, Ole Anderson,

just rough, tough, solid.

- We sure as hell can wrestle, and we wrestle better than

anybody else in the world.

- He was like a boulder of granite.

To come up against in that ring.

- They're an intelligent team as well as two rough individuals.

- Way back when, there were a lot more people that believed

the business was 100% legit

because the guys protected the business in that fashion.

It's a show, but that guy just knocked

the piss out of that guy.

That's the way Ole was.

- These men are doubly, doubly dangerous.

- Ric came down to the, uh, Carolinas,

and we took him as our cousin, Gene and I.

- I was a big fan.

I just liked wrestling my birthday present every year,

my dad took me to wrestling matches.

Once I was in it, man, I was hooked.

Huge.

I just couldn't get enough of it.

I started in 72, but I was only working, you know,

probably four times a month in Minneapolis.

I moved to Charlotte in April of '74 with $200 in my pocket.

I was married and had my first daughter.

I came into the Carolinas as one of the Anderson's cousins

because I was from Minnesota.

- And we did everything we could to teach him

because the guy didn't know nothing.

Well, of course not.

Nobody knows anything.

- He was somewhat green, but when you take him

and put him with top talent, you learn in the ring every night.

So he learned extremely fast.

That helped make Ric.

- I liked him.

He did have a certain amount of flair.

- Flair-

Mr. Excitement himself.

- And who knew that Ric would end up with this gift of gab?

- Kiss stealin'

Woo.

Wheelin' dealin'.

Limousine ridin'

Jet flyin'.

Son of a gun.

- The flamboyant World Heavyweight Champion.

- This is what makes Ric Flair tick.

When I won the world championship in '81,

I thought I was the coolest thing-

Because the NWA championship,

you traveled the world different city every night.

- The first time I met Arn was in 1981 when he was working

in the Pensacola Territory.

- I started out wrestling as my name.

- From Rome, Georgia, Marty Lunde.

- Arn resembled, Ole, the physical

resemblance was unbelievable.

And the way they performed in the ring was very, very similar.

- Ole looked at me went,

"I'll be damned.

You do look like me."

So he gave me his endorsement.

- From Minneapolis, Minnesota,

Arn Anderson.

- That was worth its weight in platinum.

Ole Anderson was a huge star.

- Of course, we knew Arn Anderson as Marty Lunde.

Apparently Ole Anderson, his uncle, had put him out to get

experience before revealing the ties to the Anderson family.

- Next 14 months, my life would go 15 different ways,

but all positive.

I met my wife.

- We had a mutual friend, his roommate I knew.

Then I went to one of the shows,

and we just started dating after that so-

He's really funny.

Great personality.

- During this time, Ric Flair, who was the world champion

back in the day, when the champion would come in,

somebody would be asked to go pick him up,

take him to the town, bring him back to his hotel,

and for the whole week he was there,

you would basically be is chauffeur in waiting.

I was blessed to have that.

We became friends and he said, "I want to get you in Charlotte.

We're fixing to make some moves for Jim Crockett Promotions."

- State of wrestling was, well, for lack of a better word,

they called it territories.

Vince McMahon of WWE,

he decided that he wanted to take over all of wrestling.

- He was going around and assembling a all star team.

He was getting top guys from each territory

to come to the WWE,

so Jim Crockett decided he'd do the same thing.

- Vince was on USA and we realized that we needed to do

that on cable to have any chance of survival.

Turner broadcasting-

TBS was hot.

People were watching it and it helped us.

- World Championship Wrestling.

- So we brought a new talent in.

- March of '85,

I went to Jim Crockett Promotions and Ole joined in

and we had a brand new heel team.

There was a history of Ric Flair

being a cousin with the Andersons.

Dusty Rhodes, who was the booker at the time,

wanted to give it a try and see how it worked-

The Andersons with Ric and that was strong.

You can't get any hotter than this.

Tully Blanchard was laying in the wings.

- My dad was a full time wrestler after he played

football up in Canada, and we moved to San Antonio

because he wanted to be a promoter.

We had our own building that we ran every Wednesday night,

and there are so many different things to -o do when you're

raised in the wrestling business, all aspects of it,

from peanuts and programs to sweeping,

to setting up the ring.

And he wanted and expected me to be an athlete.

I was taught that you needed to be a ring general

if you were one of the heels.

And I didn't reach my potential until I switched heel.

And once I got the Crockett Promotions,

it was on a tidal wave and my career exploded.

- Ladies and gentlemen, Tully Blanchard is a winner.

Always will be a winner.

- They hated him for so long.

A good fit for us.

He looked the part.

Great wrestler.

And he had a great manager, JJ Dillon.

- I'd known Tully for a long time.

I mean, I worked for his father in San Antonio,

so I had known Tully for years.

I was always a fan.

When I was 15 years old, I had a fan club for Johnny Valentine.

I helped put the ring up, help tear the ring down,

and sold in the concession.

I did everything.

I had 3,200 wrestling matches over a 20 year period.

- The experienced Jim Dillon.

- Then I became a manager.

It's a desperate move, is what it is.

Because you're the National Champion.

And you're going to stay that way.

- Tully Blanchard had JJ with him,

and I think it was just simple.

There wasn't a major angle that just defined him being with us.

I think there was one day that it just worked out that they had

Ole and I, Tully Blanchard, JJ Dillon,

Ric Flair all on the same interview.

Something popped into my head.

We were talking about our matches-

Biblical-

Four Horsemen of the apocalypse.

Never has there been so much destruction

by so few on so many.

I just dumped that out there and I went,

"You're looking at The Four Horsemen."

The main thing is

what you've got right here in the ring,

you've got a champion, you've got Tully Blanchard,

you've got Ole Anderson, you've got myself.

And last but by no means least, you've got Ric Flair-

The World's Heavyweight Champion.

You're talking about The Four Horsemen

of professional wrestling.

The people that make things happen.

It immediately sealed us as one unit-

Flair, Ole, Tully, Arn,

JJ, that's five,

but we didn't count him in the four,

but everybody got it.

That stuck.

- You truly had your four baddest [bleep] together

in one group as The Four Horsemen.

- It's rolling, stand by guys.

- I was going to do it.

- Ready?

Hey AA I just saw you, uh,

three times in the last three hours.

And, uh, Tully, we saw you at a wrestling convention,

and here we are, The Horsemen.

The crux of The Horsemen.

- You and Arn you go to an autograph show,

you just meet somebody at a restaurant.

"God, you guys when I was a kid, my dad took me

to the matches-"

- Right here.

"-and-and."

- Stick up four fingers.

- Since the day Arn did it-

This deal, it's never going to get old.

- Our mindset

for those that don't know, was not about who's beating who and

who's going on last and all that stuff.

It was who could steal the show.

That's what drove us.

And it wasn't a competition so much against our opponents,

ironic as that is.

- Yeah.

- It was a competition amongst ourselves.

And the beneficiaries of that, dare I say, was the audience.

- And the reason that we all thrived with that friendly

competition was because in the in, when the inception of it,

it wasn't us sitting in a room going, "God, you know,

we need to be called The Four Horsemen."

That's not what was done.

You just put it in one of your interviews and it clicked.

- This is it.

It'll always will be.

It was first and it was the best.

- The faction in pro wrestling is just a it's a huge thing-

DX.

- Suck it.

- nWo.

- Too sweet.

- The Bloodline.

- Acknowledge us.

And really that all goes back to The Horsemen.

- No, it was unheard of at the time because you're taking your

top guys and you're putting them together basically as one.

- When you're the world champion,

you always hang out with the elite people.

in the greatest sport in the world.

I'm talking about professional wrestling.

- You look at the great Tully Blanchard,

the United States Heavyweight Champion, right here.

- There they are.

- My own family.

The national Tag Team Champions Ole and Arn Anderson.

and the new World's-

And I mean World's Television Champion,

the great Arn Anderson.

- You get these top four guys all coming together,

and this was unheard of in pro wrestling.

Imagine if WWE had put together Hulk Hogan, Randy Savage,

and the British Bulldogs as a team.

So having these four elite guys together,

it-it really put Jim Crockett Promotions on the map and

solidified their place in wrestling.

- Anybody out there watching,

we're a unit,

The Four Horsemen are not four individuals.

- It's not just that they were all great wrestlers

and they were together.

It's how they were all great together.

- Don't get in my face again.

You are going to make an ultimate mistake.

You are way too far in the youth of your career.

- All right.

- The sum was greater than the parts.

Ric Flair in 1985 was a big deal.

But he wasn't quite Ric Flair yet.

He was emerging as that guy.

The Horsemen are a major part of why Ric Flair

is the Ric Flair that he is right now.

- We are the studs in professional wrestling.

I needed him.

This is a collective effort.

I was blond and had a flamboyant lifestyle

and flamboyant character.

Ole and Arn were the epitome of mean,

tough, rugged wrestlers.

Tully was a combination of both.

We interacted beautifully and brought a lot to each other.

- Notice how they're keeping the action in their corner.

- Greatest unit in the world.

- In order to qualify as one of The Four Horsemen,

you got to be able to back up what you say.

- A crew of people who rolled together.

And if you mess with one, you mess.

You mess with everybody.

- Let me just say something to you and all fair warning.

A lot of guys have walked out here and made the mistake of

jacking around with The Four Horsemen.

And you know what happens to 'em.

They get hurt real bad.

- He always had this vibrant energy of confidence,

of swagger.

And when you put that in front of a team like

he thrives in those situations.

- Just because I'm Slick Ric stylin' and profilin' doesn't

mean that I don't know how to be

just as mean and tough and nasty as my job

dictates I have to be.

- He could talk his [bleep], and he could back it up.

which was the coolest part.

- To be the man, daddy, you gotta beat the man.

- I'm a big fan of Ric Flair.

I think if you're going to be a champion,

if you have to have no limits to what you do.

- I'm the dirtiest player in the game.

- The fact that he was a champion,

no matter what challenges he was faced against,

he was always going to be fine,

even when one of The Four Horsemen helped him to win,

or whatever the case may be.

- Tully Blanchard and JJ handed him a shoe.

- We wanted to be the best.

The main four main dudes were The Four Horsemen.

- It's proven to people that we are superior and we have to step

on a few to make sure all other professional wrestlers know

where The Horsemen are coming from.

- They were considered at one time by many,

the most dangerous men in wrestling.

- You take public opinion,

put it above your own aspirations.

You're going to be a failure.

We do what we want to do

because we want to do it.

- Those were the original bad guys.

- Look out, look out.

- It's Tully and Arn Anderson.

- Here they come-

Arn Anderson.

Tully Blanchard.

JJ Dillon.

It's three on one.

Look out, knee right across the head.

Rams his face right down the mat.

And the news is that at this time, Ricky Morton,

a very severely broken nose, shattered his nose.

- You know, I remember as a kid watching WWE,

the very shiny, super kid friendly.

- The ultimate in Sports Entertainment.

- I would see some Jim Crockett stuff that came up

on different channels in the D.C. area.

It just was a little more like a real fight.

And you were kind of like,

"Oh my God, what is going on down here?"

They were so good at beating people up.

- He's going up on that top rope.

- Somebody's got to stop this.

- The knee right- oh.

- This was before there was a Horsemen fandom.

These guys were hated.

- In those days, they would throw batteries,

water bottles that were frozen.

- They had people wanting to take them out.

- There was a young lady about 80 years old with the nickname

Spyder in Columbia, South Carolina, who sat ringside and

had a wooden walking stick-

Threw Ricky Morton out there.

He landed at her feet.

Not by design.

I went out to get him and as I snatched Ricky up,

she cracked me over the head with that walking stick.

But she knocked me cuckoo.

- He kind of protected us from things that happened at work.

Like I wouldn't hear if there was something

with a fan or an altercation.

I mean, he didn't bring that home to me.

He came home with scrapes.

[laughing]

- She was my nurse.

She was my cheerleader.

And without her putting me back together and sending

me out the next day-

Been- probably been some days I wouldn't have made it.

It's not all fun and games

once you push it to the limit with the audience and they go,

"Well, they may need some help."

- It was just the theme of believability

that The Horsemen did.

I mean, it was the way the Anderson family oozed

destructive dominance.

- Gene and I, we did things that made people upset.

I was so damned good.

People tried to kill me.

I'd been stabbed seven times in my pro career by fans.

- Everybody would like to see the Andersons go down.

That hasn't happened yet.

It's never going to happen.

- They've jumped me in the back room

while I was doing an interview.

- It's going to be the place.

[yelling]

- Those were believability things that were so intense.

[yelling]

- Dusty wanted to create attractions

that you had to come to the arena to see,

and that you could appreciate

a struggle and being beat down and coming back.

- Dusty was so smart.

He knew that the bad guys had to have heat

if we were going to fill those seats.

Audience will pay to see the good guy beat up the bad guy,

so you better have a reason for it.

- Dusty Rhodes had it.

He's just a genius.

Whatever he wanted to do, we did.

All the good guys, you know, chasing the bad guys

the way it should be.

- That's what made the magic.

- Dusty was a big picture guy.

And I complimented him by being a detail person.

He and I were calling the shots.

- The Four Horsemen got into the dressing room in Greensboro

and scrubbed their face right in the dressing room.

- At that time, it just was a look that we had not seen yet.

Much more gritty and hardcore.

- Because you can tell it's so real to them.

Like that's what people resonate with wrestling.

- Jimmy is very smart.

He-he knows what's going on.

He's given us the rope because he's seeing that we know what

we're doing, and he's giving us the leeway.

The thing with Dusty, it was like, if you're going to take

over, you got to take the big dog down.

- Dusty's the booker.

He's a creative mastermind behind it all.

Booked himself as a star.

- The chant of Dusty from the fans.

- His greatest strength was creativity.

But he also was very, very charismatic.

- Before it was fashionable,

I was the American dream.

And before it was fashionable,

I am the rap master, Ric Flair.

- Everybody loved him.

We were just polar opposites

in the eyes of the people.

He was a perfect babyface.

I was the perfect heel.

- Dusty Rhodes-

Don't ever make the mistake of sticking your nose

in my business.

- He was the champion.

They all tried to protect him.

And that was the-

the story behind it.

Don't let nothing happen to him.

- Tully Blanchard, the National Heavyweight Champion,

does not like Dusty Rhodes.

- Breaking the chair on Dusty's leg.

- Ole Anderson cannot stand the man.

Arn Anderson cannot stand the man.

and Ric Flair cannot stand the man.

That is the reason why The Horsemen are out here

and why we are what's happening in professional wrestling.

And you can take that to the bank.

- Dusty, you know, we had the major angle,

which this is one that's famous.

We're in JJ's Cadillac,

followed Dusty down to the office.

- That's him right there.

[laughing]

- Yeah, yeah, yeah.

That's him.

[laughing]

- Hey.

- Go Arn.

[laughing]

- We were in my car and we had the TV camera guy,

and we slunked up behind Dusty, and-

- That's him right there.

Don't-don't get too close.

Stay back.

- He's turning.

We've got him.

[laughing]

We got it right where we want him.

- And when he gets parked, you block him so he can't get out.

We got him trapped.

"Get out."

[yelling]

[yelling]

- Get him.

- What are you doing?

[yelling]

[bleep]

- It was as orchestrated an attack

as wrestling had ever seen

because it was outside the ring.

[yelling]

- Can you get him?

- JJ-

- Get a look at his face.

I want to [bleep].

- Make it good.

[yelling]

- Look at this.

[yelling]

- Yeah.

[yelling]

- Yeah.

- Look at him Arn.

JJ get his face.

Yeah, look.

How about it now Rhodes, huh?

How about it?

There were people who called the police, the local police,

and wanted us arrested for assault.

- This was a different way than just beating up somebody

on TV outside the ring.

- It was one of the first times something

like that ever happened.

- It becomes so real.

And that was a real moment.

And The Horsemen brought

that out of every athlete that they faced.

That realness.

That's what made 'em great.

So it changed 'em.

Believability.

Saying, "Wow, man, they can't do that to The Dream.

They can't do that."

It captivated a whole nation.

- We had to do these things on television to get people

to get out of their car.

Go pay for parking.

Go buy a ticket.

Go sit and fight a crowd to watch The Horsemen get beat up.

- The way the wrestlers made money is through live events.

That's how they earn their living

is they got a percentage of the house.

It's how your positioned on the card from preliminary

to the main event.

The more people that come in, the more you're paid up top.

- I wanted to be on top because that was the only place you

could make money, but you couldn't be on top

if you didn't draw a crowd.

- The more people you can get, as far as persuading them

to come to the matches helps you and

what you get in your paycheck.

- The greatest four man group in wrestling, The Four Horsemen.

- Horsemen were always main event.

- Look at JJ-

[bell rings]

-nodding approval.

- The role that we all had to play was being ring generals,

being in charge and making people look good.

- We were all of the mindset that it was-

We just made our opponent by making our opponent.

We got over.

And we had great opponents

Dusty, Sting, The Road Warriors and Nikita-

- Oh, Nikita Koloff.

- I believe Ric was instrumental,

including Tully and Arn and Ole

be able to step in the ring with a guy 285 pounds,

green like me and make us look good?

It was an incredible honor to work with him.

It really was.

- All of those guys individually were at the top of their game.

The best of the best.

And when you're with that much talent, it brings you up.

If you're out there pushing the envelope every night, you know,

stretching it, trying to be the best you can be,

constantly honing your craft,

you can't help but excel in that kind of environment.

- What separated us-

We were going to go out and we were going to make them scream

for as long as humanly possible.

- I just used to watch The Four Horsemen,

even if they're booing you, that's really another form

of cheer because it's validating the impact

you have on their emotions.

- The key was to have people on the edge of their seat

for 30, 40, 50, 60 minutes.

Whatever it took.

And your cardio was off the chart.

Fortunately, we were in shape.

Oh, God.

- Remember the first time we were in, uh,

at the Helmsley Palace in Manhattan?

We're in the hallway doing-

Doing, uh, squats and pushups before room service.

That was just became your way of life.

Get up in the morning, fly, check into a hotel, gym, eat,

rest, go to work-

-day after day after day after day.

- From one arena to the next arena to the next arena.

Sold out because The Horsemen are on the marquee.

- We're put in a position of drawing money and we did a lot.

- We pack major arenas all over the world because people

like to see the best wrestlers in the world today.

That's us.

- So much money, so fast.

The Horseman-

They meant dollars.

- Because we are the measuring stick.

We are the reason that there's tens of thousands

of people in every arena.

- I was making more money than I had ever dreamt of.

My biggest year at that time was $180,000.

And you want me up here shaking in my $700 shoes and my

$500 sportcoat and shaking on national TV.

- We were riding the fast pony and boy, it was bigger than any

of us could ever dreamed that it could be.

And the last thing, even though we were working double shots

and working seven days a week, nobody said,

"Well, what am I going to get some days off?"

- Every time they wrote our name down and they put it on

television and they advertised it, we were there

and we were there ready to rock and roll.

Period.

I don't remember one single day where anybody had a sick day.

Twice on Saturday.

Twice on Sunday.

336 days.

- Oh, yeah.

- It was a different mindset.

We didn't have to be governed.

We governed ourselves.

You know, it's just-

- I-I would agree with that.

Because that was a mindset.

I mean, for us to get a day off.

Uh, I can remember when I got married to wife number two,

and by just getting all of us off so that you and Ric could-

And JJ could be in my wedding.

- And that's just for the one day.

- We wouldn't have hung out on our days off if we weren't,

if we didn't get along.

And we did.

- Marty always traveled.

That was our life.

Back then, the wrestlers were all in Charlotte

and they all hung together.

- Going over to Ric's in those days where he had

a real nice gym in his home.

- As far as the families,

it was just basically the Flair's and us-

because Tully didn't have children,

and JJ, his kids were older.

We had kids.

Barrett and Ashley were the same age and went to school together,

and we spent a lot of time together.

The only one that didn't live here was Ole.

Ole lived in Atlanta.

- I had four boys at that time who were wrestling in amateur,

and so I wanted to spend time with them,

and I just incorporated that into the interview.

- The proof is in the pudding.

Am I right or wrong?

- That's exactly right.

- Here's Ole.

- Is that supposed to be something that you want to say

to me or what?

- If the shoe fits, wear it Ole.

- Get him Ole.

- If you'd have been taking care of business

instead of that snot nosed kid, you'd be you.

- Why you-

- Oh.

Goodness gracious.

- Get him out of here.

- Being part of what we were doing wasn't important to him,

and that was fine with me.

Ole had money.

He was successful in his own right.

And so he kind of distanced himself

to go be with his son and his wrestling tournaments.

- I finally maybe learned myself that there is something that's

very important, that is family.

I did interviews like that.

A lot of people thought it was all part of the show,

but that was that was a shoot on my part.

I wanted time off to go watch him wrestle.

- It was one of the things that was legitimate in the business.

He was leaving.

He gave us a date.

Then we found out about Luger.

- A man that has taken the wrestling world by storm,

Lex Luger

- Had a different feel,

and immediately everything changed.

- I played seven years of professional football in total.

I did not grow up a wrestling fan.

And had no aspirations to be a pro wrestler.

- This is Lex Luger.

- But the injuries-

And I was definitely looking to make another move.

- I'll tell you what, he is as impressive a man

as I've ever seen in my life.

- Flair came down, worked for me in Florida,

which I was in wrestling less than a year.

He said, "This guy's got something."

- Lex Luger just out powered the champion,

and the champion a look of utter amazement.

- I met him, I was like, "Wow, this guy looks like

a million dollars."

You're a great, great, young wrestler.

- I told Jimmy Crockett, I said,

"You got to see this kid in Tampa,

and he's built phenomenal."

- I guess Dusty made the decision that Luger had the

trillion dollar look, which he did.

He looked as good as anybody in the business,

but he needed some guys around him to teach him.

- I told the guys down in Florida that he could bring me

in and make me one of The Horsemen,

and I was like, everybody's like, "Oh my gosh."

Because they were like the group.

I didn't know who the other Horsemen were.

I heard their names, but if you showed me a lineup,

I couldn't have picked Tully or Arn

or JJ out of a lineup.

All I knew was Flair.

He had come to Florida and worked with me.

- Lex Luger, a man like this only comes along once in a

lifetime and he is a great, great athlete.

- He was the right place at the right time and he had the body.

- Whatever I want in life, it's at my fingertips.

It's at my disposal.

- He had a very daunting task-

particularly being thrown in a group of people that were

the bar of excellence in terms of performance in the ring,

but thinking, how are they going to camouflage this Greek Adonis

who doesn't know a wristlock from a wristwatch, so to speak?

- Now, it went from me in training

to Luger in training.

I moved up a level, which was fine.

I mean, he had that star quality.

He just, you know, needed reps.

- Tully and Arn would take me to the ring on their off days,

which I'm looking back now.

I'm like, "Wow, I'm sure they want to do that

like a hole in the head."

And worked with me to get my work better because

those guys are all premier workers.

They didn't want me look like a total idiot out there with them.

- We managed him, you know.

We told him where to go, what to do.

- Coach a little bit.

Do this, try this.

To try to get him up to the level where the rest of us were.

- It was a great learning environment for me as a new guy.

We are the heartbeat of professional wrestling.

The present- the future, and we are the straw

that stirs the drink.

- Listen, Luger was not a talker at all.

And while he could work in the ring, he certainly wasn't the

wrestler that the other guys were-

But, the look that he brought

- Back the camera up and get all of it.

This right here is the finest physical specimen

in professional sports today.

- Esthetically, it changes the dynamic because

Ole was the most old school-

- We're killing it one by one.

- -classic southern wrestler looking guy they had.

You get rid of Ole Anderson,

and you inject Lex Luger.

You add in a guy who's just physically perfection

on top of it.

It adds a whole different layer

to what The Four Horsemen were.

- Now come on in close.

You got a cover shot for GQ magazine?

- Yeah.

- The line down the center of the territory was Ric Flair-

custom made head to toe.

- From the lizard shoes, huh?

About 700 bucks.

To the Rolex watch.

To the biggest diamonds my finger could hold.

- And Dusty Rhodes, Magnum TA blue collar worker.

- The man stands up and does his fighting for himself.

They don't gang up on a kid.

They do what they had to do by themselves, one on one.

- We're fighting against these ritzy, you know, high class guys

that, you know, think money can buy everything.

- This is what all of them are wearing

on Wall Street, daddy.

Huh?

Let's check this out one time.

- The Four Horsemen were so flashy, right?

- You're jealous,

and we expect that.

- They were intentionally obnoxious

about the way they dressed.

Look at us, only we can look-

- It really is sort of perfect, though, when you think about it.

With the greed of the 1980s, you know, when you think about

Reaganomics and think about

Lifestyles of the Rich and Famous.

- With champagne wishes and caviar dreams.

- The Michael Douglas movie Wall Street, Gordon Gekko.

- Greed-

For lack of a better word, is good.

- The rise of Donald Trump as this New York business mogul.

- Billionaire developer Donald Trump has put his name on

a New York City hotel, shopping center and apartment buildings,

as well as the casino in Atlantic City.

- All of these people were sort of entering our lexicon,

and for a regular like average blue jean wearing, wrestling,

watching Southerner, that was sort of the face of a villain.

- This you cannot by hanging on a rack at any clothing store.

Ric Flair does not dress of class.

He reeks of class.

- The elevated image of a wrestler that they didn't really

have prior to that.

- Top unit in the sport today, The Four Horsemen.

And right here, the limousine is pulled into the arena right now.

- The look of The Horsemen was important

to be what they saw on TV.

Dress like a star, look like a star.

You are a star.

- Look.

Check that watch out baby.

Check that little timepiece.

- I didn't wear a Rolex, but I had a gold

Geneva diamond bezel face.

And it was diamond time, and-

[laughing]

But it was the enlarging of your character.

- $600 custom made lizard shoes and this $13,000 Rolex.

- I was spending more than I was making.

I tried never to wear the same thing on TV-

for like three years.

I was having fun.

That's why the sportcoat costs $800 and that costs $200.

And I don't know what that costs,

I'd be ashamed to wear it.

- If you look really good,

you're going to play at a higher level.

- Thousand dollar shoes.

- He was at his best before he even stepped in the ring.

- I am

Slick Ric.

- And just was super player about everything,

you know, wheelin' and dealin'.

wheelin' and dealin' limousine riding,

jet flyin',

Son of a gun.

Woo.

- He said image is everything.

He lived that image.

- I'm stylin', woo, and profilin'.

- It was real.

I went out and bought a Mercedes.

When I started making a little bit of money

because Ric drove Mercedes.

- The family at home was getting rewarded in many ways

because you were making big money.

- I did some nice things for the family.

Buy my wife, nice jewelry,

nice luggage,

nice vehicle to drive.

Let her furnish the house, both of them, any way she wanted.

- I had a wife.

She spent money and-

and then when she left, she took all the money.

[laughing]

We're not going down that road.

I can laugh about it now.

It was pretty miserable at the time.

- Back in those days, you worked and you were on the road,

and I ran the house.

And that's pretty much how we have been our-

our whole marriage.

- That's our story.

And, uh, you have no idea of the worth

that you have in my eyes Erin.

You've made everything that we have possible.

- That's not true.

- It's very true.

You would try to keep from telling me that the dishwasher

blew up, or the car broke down, because you didn't want to

stress me out on the road,

and I couldn't be there to help you, which did stress me out.

- You've been gone consistently for 40 years.

- Yeah.

- You drove a lot, but you got home in the middle of the night.

And then when the private planes came around,

added a lot more family time during the day.

It was really nice.

- Now as business caught on,

Jim Crockett bought two planes.

Pull our car right to the steps of the private plane.

- And we would go nationwide and didn't have to deal with

commercial airlines, commercial airports,

and that can spoil you.

- Like living like a rock star.

- I had a lot of fun.

We're first class-

Limousine ridin'.

Jet flyin'.

Son of a gun.

- For those that don't know and those that don't believe it.

I have entered the computer age.

I have a podcast.

You want to hear some of the stories and the lifestyles-

Look behind the curtain.

This is the place to do it.

It's a way to connect with the fans.

They're still, for some reason, after all these years,

and thank God for it,

the Four Horsemen are still relevant.

And man, do they want to hear the stories.

Back in the day, it was cable and cable only.

That's how you connected with your fans.

Everybody on this earth wakes up every day of their life

wishing there was somebody else.

When you look around at us,

we're just ecstatic being ourselves.

- Back in those days, the TV show was an infomercial trying

to get people to buy tickets to come to the arenas.

- And how do they do that?

By having incredibly charismatic people in front of a microphone.

- We got nobody to impress

except our wallets and our women.

You understand?

We live for two things.

Money and glory.

- Watching them on television.

That's a show in itself.

- You could have an hour of them on the mic

and not have wrestling.

- We are rich women's lovers,

and poor girl's dreams.

- They promote where they're going to be,

the hotel they're going to be at.

- One more public announcement after I beat up Dusty Rhodes-

- Yeah.

- I'm going ease across the street

to the Hyatt Regency and drinks.

Anything you want is on the world champ.

[cheers]

- Ric would pay the band extra money to keep on playing songs.

Keep the bar open late.

- JJ Dillon has rented the whole top of the hotel.

So all you girls out there,

if you are between 18 and 28.

- Tomorrow night- woo.

We rented a suite on top

of the Bay Harbor Marriott.

Just had an elevator going to it and I made that promo 18 to 28.

The Horsemen will be there all night long,

and girls were leaving her boyfriends and husbands

to come up to the party.

We had 300 people in the damn room.

I woke up in the morning.

My bill was $4,000 for booze.

- And when Flair and Tully Blanchard Enterprises get

together, you know the party time is on all night long.

- We stayed at first class hotels.

Ric was renting limos, and that was all very real.

- I rented the limousines we all rode in.

I wanted to be with my friends.

The greatest time of my life.

- We eat together, we travel together, we party together.

And that's what being a Horseman is all about.

We stay out so late partying-

Sometimes I just lay down the bed to say I laid in the bed for

for like 30 seconds for this ultra expensive hotel room.

- The Four Horsemen spent more money on bellhops and spilled

liquor last year than you made-

fact of life.

- I never heard of spilled liquor.

I mean, I knew it existed, but I never heard of spilled liquor

until he brought it up.

It was hilarious.

- Cause I got this.

And you don't.

Woo.

When I'm in my groove and I'm making money,

and I have the responsibility.

I'm going to have fun.

Because we were stars and The Four Horsemen were on the road.

I didn't think anybody would be bigger than we were.

We are wrestling's elite.

Woo.

- They became bigger than the industry.

Wherever you would go,

they had such a cult following.

I'd be sitting on the other side of the bar.

They walked in.

It was like-

[flying noise]

"My God, The Horsemen are here."

[Bleep] you thought they were the [bleep] Rolling Stones,

you know what I mean?

- Don't be wrapping us up until we tell y'all-

Baltimore.

Philadelphia.

Chicago.

The Four Horsemen, woo, are going to tear it down.

- All right.

- That's all we had to say, Saturday night,

we're going to turn this town upside down.

And so when we got there.

- They would have lines sitting out front when the limo would

pull up and drop us off, and they'd let us in.

- Ric walk in first with that hairdo glowing in the dark.

- And then once we walked inside, I handed the bartender

my credit card and he says, "It's not good.

I said, "What do you mean, not good?"

He said, "Put it in your pocket."

Look behind the bar.

And he said, "These are fans that did get in that are here,

that want to be part of a night on the town with you."

And he said, "Your money's no good tonight."

- So after having some cocktails, which we had.

The one thing, no matter what you got up, went to the gym

because you had to be in condition that night.

- I wanted to stay dialed in in the gym and everything.

Ric would go to the gym too.

Ric would do all that and go to the gym.

- We had worked hard to get our images at that level

for the wrestling fans.

- Because if you didn't go out and perform like Horsemen,

if you were just dressed up like big shots and you couldn't pull

it off, that would have died quickly.

It don't make any difference what you wear out here.

Fine jewelry, because I got it all.

Big cars-

It don't make any difference because when you put your boots

and your tights on and you get inside that squared circle,

you got to wrestle.

- In a time in which wrestling was a lot of different things,

but not necessarily cool.

This, the whole energy that came with The Horsemen was cool.

- And the wrestling fans just grabbed on to it.

- Two of the finest.

- I don't know anybody who wasn't a fan

of The Four Horsemen.

There was a coolness there.

- We are the best thing going today.

Woo.

- And that really jumped off the screen.

You can hear it Tony Schiavone,

you can hear these people right here.

Horsemen.

Horsemen.

Horsemen.

That's what it's all about in professional wrestling.

That's all it has to be said.

The Horsemen right here, baby.

- You know, they created heel fans,

and they didn't cater to them.

It wasn't like they placated them and and built them up.

There was a young group of 20 to 30 year old males that just

thought this was the coolest gig they'd ever seen in their life.

If you want to be cool, you want to be a Horseman.

- And you talk about your fans,

you look at all these people out here in their shorts and beat up

t shirts, and then you look at The Horsemen fans-

Coat and tie.

That's what it's all about.

The class of the wrestling world-

are Horsemen fans.

They believe in the symbol of success.

- The WWE targeted more kids and our demographics

were more college kids.

I remember there was the group.

Somehow they'd all get together in the same area of the arena

and sit as a group.

- And here's the whole front row of the one whole section,

all dressed like we were jacket tie, and we had a following.

- And I don't remember what city it was in,

but the limo driver was a college kid,

and he had saved his money and bought a Rolex watch.

The impact of the influence that we had.

- Look at that.

[laughing]

- We actually preached in some fashion a way to live.

You could grab on to this concept of being the best.

- They're there

because they want to be

associated with the best.

- Everywhere you went-

knew who you were.

It was amazing.

Wrestling was just red hot.

- It was a professional wrestling war.

- Super towns of the superstars on the superstation of the NWA.

Tonight, the NWA will take you across the country to Super

Towns, Washington, D.C., Philadelphia, Pennsylvania,

Los Angeles.

- Jim Crockett was going to then expand based off exposure on the

Turner network, and was going to start to go national.

- Jim Crockett Promotions, going to the best and biggest cities

all over the country San Francisco,

Los Angeles at the Cap Center in Landover, Maryland, this year.

- Philadelphia, the world champion's, on his way.

- The first time we ever ran

head to head Crockett Promotions TBS versus

WWE was in Philadelphia.

We were at the Civic Center and they were at the Spectrum.

They did a gate of like 110,000, and our gate was like 140,000,

which was huge because they owned the northeast.

And we had started to grow into the northeast

because of the superstation.

The National Wrestling Alliance,

The Four Horsemen is what makes professional wrestling revolve.

- Well, when I think of The Four Horsemen,

I think of competition.

- Any combination of Horsemen, it's pure and simple-

Better than everybody else.

- That's it.

- They were holding it down in this whole southern belt

of the wrestling world.

- And they had a standard of excellence in the ring

and with their promos.

- The five of us are what the greatest sport in the world

has come to know.

Not as just The Four Horsemen, but the franchise.

- To follow their act,

you really had to be on your game.

- Everyone raved about Ric and The Four Horsemen.

They were a real presence in the business.

- The competition was the WWE, and there was a lot of show

going to the ring and and dancing around.

We didn't do a lot of that.

- We don't specialize in rock and roll music.

We don't specialize in Hollywood.

We specialize in professional wrestling.

- It was a really cool contrast, frankly, to have both.

That to me, is what made it such a glorious time

if you were a wrestling fan.

- Two wrestling giants are going at it.

No holds barred a grudge match to win the biggest TV audience.

This is Entertainment Tonight.

- 1987 was the first true boom year for professional wrestling.

- Wrestling is a big business.

A quarter of $1 billion a year industry.

- Obviously, the most marquee event is WWE selling out the

Pontiac Silverdome for WrestleMania 3.

- A brand new indoor attendance record.

- But it was also a huge year for Jim Crockett Promotions.

- The Great American Bash on tour in Charlotte Memorial

Stadium with a capacity crowd.

- The Great American Bash Tour where you get

the War Games match.

- They're building a Dome of Steel in Atlanta,

a cage to enclose the match

beyond the War Games.

- War Games was custom fit for the Horsemen.

It was sold as payday for The Horsemen for all the violence

they had pulled on everybody.

- Well, they say payback is you know what.

There are some dues to be paid during the War Games.

- I was the one they had beat up.

I had the one that had to go get my gang to beat their gang.

Needed a war to stop this thing.

- You're in the cage, but it's never before top on it.

Once you're in, you're in.

- The fans never sat down.

Man, the electricity was second to none.

- War Games,

jumped business because of the sheer brutality of it.

- Arn Anderson has bought himself a lot of punishment.

- Those things were so dangerous,

but the wrestling fans got their money's worth.

- All The Horsemen in the main event match.

That's a big card

making lots of money.

- I believe that we were the biggest attraction

in the wrestling business.

We sold out everywhere.

We are the best.

And like Lex says-

He is the fastest rising star in our sport.

- Yeah, I was red hot.

You are looking at the most awesome physical specimen in

professional sports today.

Listen to that, Tony.

[crowd cheers]

- They love him.

- In Jimmy's mind, that's our Hulk Hogan.

That's the guy we can build around.

- Lex Luger is the most marketable commodity

in professional sports today.

- And I think that was the initial plan for him all along.

But he needed some guys around him to teach him.

- My associations with them skyrocketed

my career and really launched it.

Just to have been a Horseman for the time period I was,

I was just honored that I was one of those guys.

When I left the group.

Barry Windham came in.

- Growing up my dad was a pro football player

and a professional wrestler.

- Mulligan is about as big and as bad as they come.

- So I just started hauling the ring and refereeing,

and putting out posters on the weekends,

and then I left college and started wrestling.

I'm coming in the ring and I'm coming there for one purpose,

and that's to show you what I can do.

- Barry turned professional at a very young age

and has done exceptionally well.

- I knew Dusty from when I was a kid,

so he immediately took me under his wing.

When I was traveling with Dusty,

and we were talking about me becoming a Horseman,

it was partially because of my ring ability.

Dusty and I talked about it for six months before we did it.

- We had it all picked out for ya.

- You look great.

- That's you brother.

[laughing]

- Let the party begin.

- You going to switch Luger, out with Barry, I said,

"Im in."

Barry is 6'6", moves like a gazelle.

And he was polished.

He was a superstar.

- He was a natural at it and didn't miss a step.

And The Horsemen just kept going.

- Once again walking the turnbuckle,

Windham's go the bounce,

Windham with the belly to back suplex

- Barry is better fit than me.

Barry was already a premiere worker.

That was the best group of The Horsemen-

In my opinion.

- The upper echelon of professional wrestling

is right here.

And I have just carried it up one more notch.

- That's the greatest iteration,

performance wise, that group ever had.

Every single one of them was a world champion.

- The only thing that matters in this sport,

you're either a world champion or you're not.

We had all the gold.

Arn and Tully were tag champions,

Ric was the World Heavyweight Champion,

and I was U.S. Heavyweight Champion,

and it was successful for a while.

- Business was going up, but paychecks weren't going up.

- In the next few hours, it will be pandemonium,

in this sold out facility, ladies and gentlemen.

- We are so successful that we're, if anything, being

hampered by the fact that it's owned by a family.

- We were doing an awful lot of things, right.

We just didn't have the infrastructure to-to take

advantage of what we were doing.

- Crockett was making a lot of money back then, but if he had

just stayed east of the Mississippi,

they wanted to go to Texas.

They wanted to go to California.

That- we just didn't have that kind of saturation.

We didn't have TV like Vince did.

- We have rented some of the finest sports facilities

throughout the United States.

- It was growth by necessity, not by-

We really wanted to do it.

All of a sudden, all this debt started coming.

You know, we were imploding.

- When you're making money, you're blind to a lot of stuff.

But there was one payoff in particular-

Jimmy called me in a room, and he said,

"I just want you to know that, uh, I appreciate how hard you're

working, what you mean to the company,

and he said, "For this pay-per-view coming up,

I want to pay you 25 grand."

Well, when we ended up getting paid, now we figure out things

were not as rosy as they should have been

as far as the company earnings.

It was half that.

He should've never told me,

he just, I'd have been thrilled with half of that.

So that was kinda started it.

I was damn nervous.

And so was everybody in that locker room.

- The people at Turner, they were going to buy it.

They called me and talked to me.

They were asking me questions about the business and why

things were going the way they were, and I just answered them.

And instead of being a rah rah guy, I put on a different hat

promoter's kid, and I said some things that obviously he

repeated to Mr. Crockett.

And Mr. Crockett didn't appreciate it.

And Crockett called me and kicked me off the jet.

- They took him off the private plane

that meant traveling commercial.

And that's a different animal.

And it's insulting-

It's a slap in the face.

- I didn't need to be spanked.

So you want to spank me and kick me off the jet?

I quit.

- We felt like we were the best,

and we didn't feel like we were high on the priority list

like we should have been.

- And the next night in Philadelphia,

we went out and

dropped the world championship to the Midnight Express.

And we were done.

- After Philadelphia, Flair,

in his mind, he thought for sure we'd just have a few drinks,

blow off some steam, and we'd be at TV the next day.

Well, time for TV, no Tully, no Arn

- It hit him.

He called me and he was pretty emotional.

- Ah, God, when Arn and Tully left for the WWE,

it was devastating.

I missed my friends, but big void for me personally.

Here were my two closest pals on the road.

They were gone.

I didn't blame 'em.

They got screwed and they needed to go out and show the

world how good they were.

- Month later, were on WWE TV.

- I'd like to introduce right now two of the newest members

of the Bobby "The Brain" Heenan family-

Tully Blanchard, Arn Anderson,

collectively known now as the Brain Busters.

- We saw an opportunity for two tremendous in-ring talents

in Arn and Tully,

and I thought they were a great package.

- I remember Arn and Tully coming to WWE

like it was yesterday.

That was a big deal.

That was the first time

that a super prime talent from Jim Crockett

in the middle of their career,

would cross the line and join WWE.

- You brought the best tag team from WCW up, and Hart Foundation

has been the best team in WWE.

We were so not prepared that they kind of ran circles around

me and Jim in that original match that we had.

- My greatest growth in the wrestling business

was our time with them.

They were just so smart, so good, so in sync.

- The Brain Busters, tag team title holders.

- We were the first team to do that.

The WWE titles and Jim Crockett's world titles.

It was great.

We thought we were the best team in the world.

- Come on-

- Anytime.

Business was so hot for those guys.

They were running 2 or 3 towns a night.

We were skipping all over the country with WWE.

- They traveled everywhere.

A lot of West Coast and commercial flights.

He was gone.

- It's hard when you have little kids,

and it's hard when you have a wife.

When he was about three years old,

I just remember him on the phone crying, saying,

"When are you coming home, daddy?"

And it sucks.

- It was just too hard.

He needed to leave.

[laughing]

He missed his family.

- To be honest with ya, that 14 months,

almost killed me.

- It was a learning process.

And during that time is when Turner bought Crockett

and they were passing out big contracts.

Turner owned a baseball teams basketball team,

and he only knew putting athletes on contracts.

And, uh, after about a year with the WWE,

I told Arn, I said, "We need to see if they'd like to put

The Horsemen back together again."

- So we had already talked to Ric and he said,

"I've got you a deal with Jim Herd."

And Jim Herd was the executive that was hired to run

the initial company once Turner bought it.

Three years, 250 a year.

Ric was excited to have us back.

So what we think is a done deal,

and we're going down there to sign a contract.

- But that's when my life hit a dynamic change.

Arn and I were-were in a bar,

and I had met some young lady

over there that, uh, wanted to dabble with some white powder,

and I had a $100 bill in my pocket and gave it to the

waitress, and she came back and handed me a baggie, and, uh,

I gave it to the girls, and they went to the bathroom,

and they brought it back, and it was empty.

And, uh, but I wanted to look like I knew what I was doing.

So I licked the inside of the bag and, uh, walked into the

Philadelphia Spectrum at 2:00 the next afternoon,

and it said "Drug test" on the wall.

And I flunked a drug test that day.

And I didn't think that-that would cause a problem.

It'd just get me to Atlanta quicker.

But-

About ten days later, November 13th,

Ric Flair called me at 1:00 in the morning,

and he told me that they had found out about

the drug test and they reneged on the deal.

- Ric Flair calls me on November 13th at 1:00 in the morning

and he says,

"Tully, I've got some bad news.

They found out about your drug test,

and they reneged on the deal.

Now guys, there's only two companies that you could work

for back in those days,

WCW or WWE.

That was it.

And in the course of 11 days, I have gone-

[flying noise]

at both of them.

An absolute panic came over me.

I am the only guy in professional wrestling that ever

flunked the a drug test that didn't go back to work,

but I went on a different path.

4:03 in the morning, gentlemen, I said five words.

I said, "Jesus, take over my life."

And, guys, that was the very first time I'd ever used

the name Jesus when I wasn't cussing somebody.

The power changed my life.

There was a calmness that came over me

that I had never felt before.

I just do what the Lord says to do,

and since 1994, that has been in the jails and prisons,

and hopefully it has reached people's lives.

Is there anybody who can say to me,

"Tully, I need a change in my life?"

If that's you, slip your hand up.

Thank you, thank you, thank you.

Keep your hand up.

Thank you guys.

Everything about my life for the last 35 years

has been promoting the power of God to change people's lives.

- What a surprise, The Andersons,

Ole Anderson, Arn Anderson back in the NWA.

- The people in Atlanta did Arn wrong because they hired him

without me and they cut his contract.

- Jim Herd said, "You guys, to be honest with you,

are worth more as a team than you are a single.

So I'm gonna have to cut your three year contract 150 grand.

50 grand a year, times three."

I go,

"I didn't do anything.

Mr. Herd, I- I'm getting penalized.

I mean, because he screwed up."

That left a really bad taste in my mouth.

That was a bunch of money to me and my house.

- It was my fault for flunking the drug test.

And, uh, sad thing.

- There's a myth that used to exist

in the National Wrestling Alliance that was called

The Four Horsemen.

And by God, it started here.

And by God, it's going to end here.

So when I came back, Ole came back,

Ric was there.

JJ had went to WWE in an office capacity,

but you still had the makings if we would have added Tully,

I think we could have done some good things.

They tried to make a Horsemen after that.

It just was not the same.

- The four greatest individual wrestlers

right now in the world.

- The Horsemen aren't The Horsemen without Arn and Ric and

Tully, so I mean, any other combination

thereof is not the original.

So those three guys are it.

- The Horsemen, woo, are reunited again.

All right.

- You try and try

throw something up against the wall

and see if it stick.

And it didn't.

You cannot remake something that was so perfect.

- Every time the Horseman would come back,

they looked a little bit like a shell of themselves.

So you'd get that initial pop like.

"Oh, Horsemen."

But then you're like, "This ain't the same Horsemen."

And they were not helped by the fact that there was a new

faction in town that changed everything, called the nWo.

- Woo.

- The following announcement has been paid for

by the New World Order.

- Here's the nWo.

- Ready or not, here we come.

- The nWo was the new cool thing.

And when you think about it,

one of the sort of unintended effects of that is it kind of

ends up pushing Ric Flair aside.

So you have like this guy who's been a big star for a very long

time, but he's not a part of this thing.

- "The Nature Boy" Ric Flair, they just sprayed him in the

face for crying out loud.

You can blind a person that way.

- I was just doing what they told me to do,

but they don't want The Four Horsemen.

I was lost.

- If you weren't directly a part of the nWo,

it was kind of hard for you.

- You're either with us or you're against us.

- It was all about those guys, and I don't think it would have

mattered who their opponents were.

It wasn't about their opponents, it was about the nWo.

The good guys were The Horsemen at that point.

There was no plan going forward, so that disappointed me.

But I didn't think that was going to be

the end of it for me.

- I don't think some of these people realize

what's been going on in your life over the last 90 days.

I happen to know you have been injured.

- I had had a couple of instances

where I got dropped on my neck bad.

One time my bicep disappeared,

my rear delt disappeared,

and one time the arm just went numb.

And when this turned into that and this thumb quit operating,

now I'm left handed.

Life in general.

I can't do this button.

I can't zip my pants.

When this died,

life changed.

But what are you going to do?

That's when I had surgery, which was '97.

I got a pretty serious scar on my neck,

it's about seven inches.

I had a laminectomy.

I gave you everything I had, and you knew that.

And when you did this to me-

That was your acknowledgment.

Well, the fact is I got nothing left to give.

- I felt bad for him.

One of the saddest moments in my career.

He was saying goodbye to the business.

- I think it was scary.

I mean, we had just bought our house.

We had two houses at that point.

I just had Brock,

and it was a lot of pressure.

You know, because he wasn't thinking his career

was going to end.

Luckily he, you know, transformed to

behind the scenes.

But that wasn't his passion.

- As a producer/agent,

your job is to help guys with matches.

Thank God I had that job to fall back on.

And that's pretty much what I've been doing ever since.

- I'm going to give you the only thing I got left.

Not a spot.

Not a spot.

I'll give you MY spot.

- I have only one thing to say.

It would be a privilege.

- I think over time, while there was still cachet

to The Four Horsemen,

it clearly was not what it was originally.

- What?

- Oh, no.

- Hennig has just gone right for Ric Flair.

- My God, what's he doing?

[bell rings]

- The Horsemen have fallen prey to the nWo.

- Those guys just were no longer positioned as top guys.

- Death of The Horsemen.

Right in their own backyard.

- Nothing can stay the same forever.

And nothing can stay cool forever.

- They smacked him right in the face.

- There was a time when he could say.

"Don't you know who I am? I'm Ric Flair,"

and get things done.

Don't last forever.

I think that did a lot to destroy his confidence.

And once you started down the other side of that mountain,

in those days, you might not get back to the top.

- I just had lost my self-confidence so bad

from the experience of the WCW, and-

so they just pushed me to the side

and had anxiety and just all kind of stuff.

The character Ric Flair was, he was gone.

They cracked me.

- I'm honored and privileged to

still be around and be recognized, I think.

- Good show.

- What's up [indistinct]?

- Hey, how are you?

- Good to see you sir.

- Good to see you.

Thanks for being here.

- Thanks for having me.

Appreciate it.

The fact is, it's been a long, long time since he and I

wrestled to have people come up to you and say

that they remembered.

It's a little overwhelming.

- Hello there.

How you doing?

- Good.

- My goodness.

Nice to see you.

- But, you know, you impacted the sport

and you impacted audiences.

- The Horseman is always one upping, the next one upping one

another, one upping their opponents, but also, like,

that brought the best out of my dad,

and I mean, if he was here, he asked him that was the most fun

he ever had in his career.

- Yeah.

- I take that as them, remembering us,

but remembering the quality.

- This company was mighty good to me.

I was a producer here for 19 years after they bought WCW.

Ric came in later.

- Hey AA, what's going on my brother?

How are you man?

- Once he came in, Hunter decided they were going to put

him with Randy and Batista,

that they needed a name, and I started picturing them-

I'm thinking, "Okay, so past, future, present.

That's Evolution."

- What you see in this ring before you is the greatest

example of Evolution you will ever see.

- Evolution was just awesome.

Like the reincarnation of The Four Horsemen.

- Ric Flair,

the greatest professional wrestler of all time,

a living legend, woo.

- We did the same thing I've been doing my whole life.

We made people look good.

I went around the country putting everybody over.

I just had so much fun.

And gradually with them,

I got my self-confidence back.

Where are we going?

Woo.

It's L.A., Vince, we're going down to the strip

to party, woo, with the champ.

[laughing]

- It thrust him back into people's imagination

as the guy that he was.

And I think in a lot of ways, Flair being in Evolution

help bolster the legacy of The Four Horsemen.

And then it all came full circle to get to see them,

then go into the WWE Hall of Fame together.

- There you go.

That's a classic.

Wow.

- They recognized us and didn't include Ole.

I don't think he was insulted, angry.

It wasn't something that was important to him.

It meant something to us.

It's a good fit

- It's a very good fit.

The highlight of my career,

and thanks pal.

- Thank you.

Proud to have been a part of it.

- Congratulations.

- Thank you.

Appreciate it.

What an honor

it really, really is.

- The Four Horsemen rode that lightning bolt.

into this business called professional wrestling.

- Oh, please.

I have had and this is-

this is really hard to say.

I have had the most wonderful career

than any athlete of any sport could possibly have.

God, I've been doing this for 40 years, guys.

The eight years or nine years that this group ran together,

good Lord, it was the best time of my life.

We just loved being the best at what we were doing.

[crowd cheers]

It was the first time that my four kids

had seen me in that world,

because they weren't alive when I was wrestling.

I know it affected Tessa because she went that direction.

It's neat to be able to watch Tessa when she performs, and

there's a part of me that holds on to that.

Just like Ric, introducing his children.

- Stand up.

Come on Reid man,

Ashley,

One more time, baby.

Boy, it lit her up

- She said dad I want to wrestle.

Boy, did she catch on.

The greatest honor a father could ever have.

I mean, how many other fathers in the business have that?

- My son Brock is getting better all the time.

He's paying his dues.

Son, there's not a lot more I can give you in life.

How would you feel about those being yours?

- Dang pops.

It's not lost on me.

The responsibility that comes with those boots.

- That Horseman brand has lived on.

It's just like, no matter how much time passes,

this continues to resonate.

And it's so great that, like, those guys have always they've

been around and you get to see them pop up here and there

and have their moments together.

- Once a part of The Four Horsemen, Arn Anderson, Tully

Blanchard, WWE Hall of Famers at Saturday Night's Main Event.

- We got our name from the Bible

four horses that were not

positive horses.

To kill with sword, with hunger,

with death, and by the beasts of the Earth.

But we changed that to mean something very positive

to be the best, the symbol of excellence.

- I've been in my car.

Stop at a traffic light.

I glance over and there's the car,

and the guy does a double take and does this.

Wow.

I'm lucky, God, am I lucky.

- I'm 42 years in the business

would have never had that length of career had it not been

of a phenomenon called The Four Horsemen.

- I'm livin' this great life now,

and it's all because of what I did in the 80s.

Post Malone, my man.

- Come on man.

- Woo.

Woo.

- Ric Flair.

- Woo.

Brought The Four Horsemen back into mainstream.

And to this day, it's huge.

It's bigger now than it was then.

- I'm honored to tell you on behalf of WWE, we would like you

to be part of the 2025 class of the WWE Hall of Fame.

- Wow.

- Working with The Horsemen, The elite group and wrestling all

that has led to-to what's happened right here just now,

shockingly.

Oh my gosh, I can't believe it.

Oh, look at that.

- Being one of The Horsemen was probably

the highlight of my career.

When you got the right team together and the right guys.

It just-

Everything just snaps.

- The Four Horsemen were showing unity

before it was ever fashionable.

The camaraderie just reeked across the television screen.

- The greatest memories was traveling

for five years with you two.

- Mine too.

- There was a friendship and a bond.

- The best way to say it is we were legitimate partners.

- We're a unit.

The Four Horsemen are not four individuals.

We love to perform.

We had a phenomenal chemistry.

We were friends and we loved going to work together.

- Philly tonight.

- Woo.

- Chicago tomorrow.

The Four Horsemen, right here.

- Yeah.

- Woo.

- It was a culmination of a group of individuals

that all shared the same passion for this industry.

- You don't follow in the shadow of a legend,

you create your own legend in your own lifetime.

And we are as The Horsemen.

- The fans today,

the fans yesterday,

and the fans of tomorrow

watch films of The Horsemen and they go,

"Oh my God, these guys are fantastic."

- The Four Horsemen, one for all,

and all for one.

We had a great gimmick.

There's nothing like The Four Horsemen ever.

- Diamonds are forever and so are The Four Horsemen.

- Woo.

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