To be the man, you gotta beat the man: Ric Flair has beaten himself

I was more of a WWF/E kid growing up so while I respected the hell out of Ric Flair, his "retirement" in 2008 didn't hit me as emotionally as say, Shawn Michaels' did two years later.

But I still thought it was the best possible way -- save for one last title run but there are issues with that as well -- for "The Nature Boy" to go out. He had a fantastic match at WrestleMania 24 with "HBK" where the latter mouthed those immortal words:

I love you. I'm sorry.

One 'Sweet Chin Music' and an emotional farewell speech the next night on RAW later, Flair was retired. A 35-year career was supposed to have been put to rest and the man who became synonymous with North Carolina was finally going to be able to rest.

No more screaming into a microphone, no more running a razor blade across his forehead, no more falling onto his back over and over each and every night.

And that terrified him.

It was likely terrifying for more way than one. As the article from Grantland.com by Shane Ryan (full recap by our own Keith Harris here) so heartbreakingly indicated, Flair is drowning in a sea of debt brought on by alimony, bad business deals, and overall money mismanagement.

A 60-year old man living the gimmick of a man half his age has nearly nothing to his name aside from his name itself. And even that, now, is starting to become worthless.

He refused a contract from the WWE that would have netted him half a million dollars a year for essentially nothing in lieu of taking a convention appearance here and there, an offer to do a shoot interview, and other ventures.

Of course, like a piranha feeding frenzy, people were eager to get a piece of Ric Flair post-retirement. The offers were large and plenty but once all the meat was picked off the bones, "The Nature Boy" was left with little.

He agreed to wrestle Hulk Hogan on the "Hulkster's" 'Hulkamania' tour of Australia, essentially spitting in the face of Michaels, who Flair claimed was the only man he'd want to have his last match with.

Then in January 2010, less than two years after the picture perfect send-off he received from the WWE, he made his debut with TNA

In the world of professional wrestling, nothing is forever. Firings, retirements, it's all healed by time, money or a combination of the two. But this was supposed to stick. And I would chalk it up to naiveté but over 20 years of watching the sport has made me into as hardcore a cynic about the business as you can get.

But did he do it all for money? Why else wouldn't he want to kick back poolside at a mini-mansion in Charlotte? Well, let me ask a question. If you were to see Ric Flair walking down the street, how likely would it be that you shout, "Hey, 'Nature Boy'!"

As much as we identify Flair as "The Nature Boy," the way he does it to himself must be tenfold. The man who parades around as Ric Flair now has nothing in common with the boy who was given up for adoption and raised in Minnesota.

In wrestling, your "gimmick" sometimes forces you to act as someone else. Kane is no more a homicidal maniac than Alberto Del Rio is a pompous millionaire. Unfortunately for Flair, he has been living his gimmick for too long to determine where "The Nature Boy" ends and Richard Morgan Fliehr begins.

"To be the man, you gotta beat the man," Flair has said countless times over the past four decades. He's lost plenty of matches in that time but no one has ever beat him.

He was Ric Flair. "The Nature Boy." The limousine riding, jet flying, kiss stealing, wheeling, dealing, son of a gun.

The only man who could ever beat him was himself.