During an appearance on the "Ringside Rap" radio show on Blogtalkradio with hosts Rich Tate and Mike Sempervive, Mike Mooneyham of The Post and Courier discussed in detail the incident involving Ric Flair in Dublin, Ireland. Mooneyham, who is a close friend of Flair's, stated that TNA owes Flair a lot of money and that is what the dispute was over.
"I knew a lot of it wasn't true as it was portrayed. TNA owes him a lot of money. All he was doing was asking for an advance on money that they already owed him. He spent $10,000 just to bring his wife over there of his own money. Yes, he wasn't going to take a bunch of money overseas on this tour because they still owe him back money and they owed him money for every date on the tour. That was his understanding.
He was merely asking for an advance on money that was already owed to him. That never came out in any of these stories. The stories I read were, oh he is hitting guys up at the bar for, you know, to help with the bar tab. That wasn't true. He said those guys don't have money anyway. You know? (Host interjects: Well, they all work for TNA too.) Yeah, exactly. They don't have any money. He is not even blaming this TNA agent who refused to give him an advance.
The guy said well ever since Dustin Rhodes, we don't do this anymore. Flair said, am I Dustin Rhodes? You know, he wasn't cutting a promo on him exactly, but understand where he is coming from. Am I Dustin Rhodes? Am I that to this company? I can tell you one thing. When he signed on to TNA, he signed on for Ric Flair treatment. He signed up for star treatment. The big thing with Ric is respect, okay? He wants to be respected and he certainly deserves respect.
He doesn't want to be treated like Joe Jabroni. That is pretty much how he was treated as far as his interaction with this TNA representative. Ric then said, put it on your credit card. You don't have the money? Put the expense on your credit card. So they didn't do it and he said I will see you when I see you. He just wasn't going to the next show. He had no intention of not showing up in London or doing the rest of the tour. It was more of that he was taking a stand. I support him in that."
You can listen to the entire show with the segment starting at the 85 minute mark.
Note from Ryan Clark: Also, it's been reported that Flair has been asking co-workers to borrow money at bars, which Mooneyham says is untrue. Keep in mind the source of this news when reading this report. Mooneyham has interviewed Flair in the past and is very anti-TNA & pro-Ric Flair with his blogs. That is also obvious from the blog quotes above, especially the "He wants to be respected and he certainly deserves respect." line. Numerous TNA sources also deny this report. Please take this for what it's worth guys.
