30 for 30 (TV Series) Nature Boy (2017) User Reviews

Interesting even if you don't like pro wrestling.

[planktonrules · 8/10 · 7 November 2017]

I am not the target audience for this episode of "30 for 30" because I never have watched nor enjoyed pro wrestling. Despite this, however, I did find this installment interesting...mostly because Flair was an interesting character...with many flaws.

During the 1970s through the 90s, Ric Flair was a bigger than life figure in the pro wrestling world. He was a great wrestler physically...but he was also a huge spectacle on and off the mat as well. With a persona of a pretty guy who lived LARGE (with tons of girls and booze and partying), it's amazing he's lived as long as he has! But, as a result of this lifestyle, he was not the best family man...a guy who was fun to be with but not exactly fun to be related to. And, the final portion of the show centers on his terrible family life and its impact on his children, in particular, Reid.

The show is made up of interviews with Flair (both before and after his well publicized near-death recently) as well as his contemporaries, friends and family. It creates an interesting figure...but also a rather sad and pathetic one in some ways. Very well made...as are all the episodes of "30 for 30".

Nature Boy

[bobcobb301 · 8/10 · 10 November 2017]

I used to love the 30 for 30 documentaries during its early run, but few have really piqued my interest. A documentary about Ric Flair definitely fits that bill though.

It was gritty, it got dark, and it provided great insight into how troubled Ric's life was. It did not feature as much wrestling as I would have hoped for, and I expected that when director Rory Karpf made it clear he's not a wrestling fan, but it did give enough to let fans know how great he was.

ESPN did a good job with this one.

In an Industry of Larger-Than-Life Personalities, Flair was a Giant

[drqshadow-reviews · 8/10 · 17 November 2017]

A fascinating short-form peek into the life and times of Ric Flair, statistical anomaly and pro wrestling royalty. There are a million reasons Flair shouldn't have grown into the phenomenon he became, from his parents' disapproval to the jet crash that nearly took his life to the hard-partying, absurdly alcohol-soaked lifestyle he embodied for four decades. Where normal men would take the hint and move on to another chapter of their story (or simply fall into the machine), Flair put his head down and bowled through the adversity. He used the hard times as motivation to come back even stronger, fuel for the construction of a legend that, in time, supported every last one of his outrageously boastful claims. No great reward comes without a price, though, and Flair's was steep. His own body may have been damn near indestructible, but that of his son, who idolized and modeled himself after everything his father stood for (the good traits and the bad), was not.

At just seventy-seven minutes, Nature Boy is an efficient, well-crafted documentary that screams right by and still feels like it hasn't even scratched the surface. Which should be expected, because how do you condense a forty-year career, never mind one with this many twists and turns, into slightly more than an hour? Flair, the Nature Boy himself, is startlingly frank about his years in the limelight, delivering the dirt in a pair of emotionally charged interviews that range from celebratory to confessional to tear-stained. His life has been vibrant, if not heartwarming, and when he's speaking it can be almost impossible to turn away, even if there is a certain doubt about the veracity of his claims. The way he lived, or more aptly the infamous way he spent, can make almost anything seem realistic. But as future WWE Hall of Famer Triple H reminds us in a pointed remark late in the film, he's almost as legendary a liar as he was a technician in the ring.

Wooooooo out of Woooooooooo

[southdavid · 8/10 · 24 January 2022]

The Disney Plus app has a number of the 30 for 30 documentaries on there and I'm going to get through them one day, but I wanted to make sure that I saw this one as I am a big Wrestling fan and I remember this getting some good reviews when it was initially released. You could make a documentary about the Nature Boy that runs for hours, but given the time allowed this was pretty good.

Richard Fliehr, born in 1949 and raised by adoptive parents, meets Greg Gagne who convinces him to join a wrestling camp ran by his father Verne Gagne. His professional career is nearly cut short by a serious plane crash, which breaks his back. His recovery forces him into a different style of Wrestling and soon "The Nature Boy" characters is born. Unfortunately, Ric Flair comes to live the gimmick, spending lavishly, drinking heavily and womanising, which would cost him two marriages and many years of life with his children.

I felt, as an overview of Flair's life, it was solid. You could, as I said, spend hours and hours on it - particularly if you could get footage from the WWE to work with. Various aspects of his career, his return to WCW after the first WWF stint, his time spent booking with the NWA/WCW, his falling out with Jim Herd, David Flairs time in the business and many other stories are either hinted at or ignored completely but given the nature of the 30 for 30 format, it was well done.

I thought the elements dealing with the death of Reid perhaps felt a little exploitative, but I understood later than they fed into the Charlotte storyline that gives the episode it's more positive ending. It was interesting to see how big Flair was, prior to the plane crash and to relive the retirement angle on more time.

Interesting, but barely scratching the surface.

Interesting and informative look at the legend the one and only "Nature Boy" it shows Flair's life in and out of the ring and the ups and downs!

[blanbrn · 9/10 · 9 November 2017]

Always been a fan of sports and like finding out info on legends and "ESPN's" series "30 for 30" is the place to turn to. And you guessed it I was a fan of old classic wrestling in it's best heyday the 1980's growing up as a kid remembered the bad guy himself Mr. Ric Flair(Woo!). And this doc called "Nature Boy" is all about the life inside and outside of the ring as you find out plenty as Flair's life had the good and the bad! The footage starts out from his childhood in Minnesota and tells how he trained as a wrestler before going in the ring in the 70's and getting started to later become the "Nature Boy". Interviews are given from family and ex wives and Flair children and many greats like Hulk Hogan, Steamboat, Four Horseman members and other wrestling members tell what an impact that Flair made on the sport. Early "NWA" footage was nice to see as his cocky and arrogant talk tough interviews were a delight, and his classic battles with the now late Dusty Rhodes were some treasure chest highlights.

It tells of the "Nature Boy's" wild ways as he couldn't leave the ladies alone as he even states in the doc, he's been with over a thousand women and as high as five sexual encounters a day. Flair had the other vice of alcohol abuse and he was married to the wrestling ring as work was his life, also shown is his move to the "WWF"(later known as the now "WWE").

Ric talks during this film before and around the footage as to how it broke his heart that he wasn't around enough for his now deceased son, as it's pain to see "The Nature Boy" cry with tears about his loss. Still thru it all even a recent near death experience can't keep a good man down as the one and only Ric Flair is still going("Woo!") Call him wrestler, bad guy, entertainer, or whatever Ric Flair was one of a kind an icon and pop culture legend that blended sports and entertainment!

"I always wanted to be The Man."

[classicsoncall · 8/10 · 4 March 2023]

Unless you lived in a cave during Ric Flair's heyday as a professional wrestler, you would at least have heard his name in connection with the entertainment sport even if you weren't a wrestling fan. This documentary was a fine tribute to the many times World Champion, especially since it featured Flair himself in a one-on-one interview for a good part of the program. He's unusually candid about his life on the road, partying and drinking hard and making fast with the women, to the point that you'll wonder how he ever lived as long as he has, given he's just turned seventy-four as I write this. You can see how the years have ravaged his body and matinee idol good looks from the years of hard living and especially the bumps and bruises he took as a topflight competitor. Having been a long-time wrestling fan before it went way over the top crazy with Vince McMahon's WWE, it was cool to see wrestling stars from the Seventies and Eighties offer their comments on Flair, guys like Greg Gagne, Ricky Steamboat, and fellow 'Horsemen' Arn Anderson and Tully Blanchard. Perhaps the best tribute came from Hulk Hogan, who stated that Flair was ten times the wrestler that he himself was, always working unselfishly to put his opponent over in the best light possible. The documentary does take a look at Flair's neglected home life, and the tragic death of his son Reid at the age of twenty-five, though it turns upbeat with the success of daughter Ashley becoming a wrestling world champion in her own right using the persona of 'Charlotte'. Current pro wrestler and WWE executive Triple H (Paul Levesque) attempts to put Flair's boastful claims as the world's greatest wrestler of all time in perspective near the end of the program by stating that he was also a great liar. For example, to answer a question about how many women he's been with, Flair off handedly puts the number at ten thousand. If you do the math, that would be one woman every single day for twenty-seven years. But the story does mention that Flair's remarkable popularity on the wrestling scene lasted from 1972 to 1999, which would oddly enough, be twenty-seven years!