Ric Flair Abruptly Cancels Appearances Due to ‘Sudden Illness’

Ric Flair just announced via Twitter that an unspecified illness will keep him from making several appearances this weekend.

The 69-year old icon posted the following message Friday morning:

“Due to a sudden illness, I am sorry to say that I must cancel mu appears this weekend. I want to personally apologize to all the fans who were expecting to see me in NYC, Dallas, an Arkansas and the people who worked very hard to put the events on. As someone who has never missed a day of work in his entire career, it is with heavy heart that had to make this decision. Again, thank you to all my fans for your continued support and will be stylin’ and profiling’ again in no time.” wrote Flair.

Earlier this spring, the Wrestling Observer Newsletter reported that Flair will undergo a “very serious” surgery on July 9th to remove a colostomy bag that was installed after his life-saving surgeries this fall.

Per the Observer, Flair wants to ramp up his training and this surgery will help him achieve that. At the moment there is no information that connects Friday’s news to this prospective procedure.

Flair’s health has made a bundle of headlines in the past calendar year but none were more alarming than his August-long health battle.

On August 11, Flair checked himself into an Atlanta hospital due to stomach pains. the precautionary visit escalated quickly to near kidney failure and a heightened chance of congestive heart failure. Flair was placed in a medically induced coma and doctors removed part of his bowel and inserted a pacemaker.

He chronicled his saga on Busted Open Radio:

“I had ten days of life support, brother, that would wake anybody up,” Flair said. “I’m just lucky I’m here, I just kind of take each day, I don’t take anything for granted anymore. They gave me a 20 percent chance of living and somehow I made (it).”

As we reported extensively on during the scare, Flair was hospitalized due to multiple health issues, including an intestinal blockage. He also had surgery to install an internal pacemaker. He had previously been using an external pacemaker.

Flair elaborated on how his years of drinking and partying hard on the road, unfortunately, made his situation worse.

“When I got out I only weighed 206 pounds, I lost 43 pounds. I couldn’t walk, I couldn’t even twist the top off a Gatorade bottle. I could stand on my legs, but I couldn’t walk, so I had to go to a rehab place for 20 days of physical rehab where they make you walk with a walker and then a cane and then you learn to walk by yourself,” he said.

According to Flair, the simple task of eating proved to be quite the hurdle.

“That took a while, and then I couldn’t drive a car. I ate anything in the world, but couldn’t gain any weight because all the food I was consuming was going towards repairing internal tissue that was ruined because when I went into the hospital my kidneys failed, I had respiratory heart failure and I had pneumonia all at the same time. Brother, I don’t drink anymore… The doctor told me if I ever had a drink again, I wouldn’t make it through another operation like that.”