Ric Flair: "WWE is the most insensitive company in the world"

• WWE

Ric Flair is officially recognized as a sixteen-time world champion: he has held the NWA World Heavyweight Championship eight times, the WCW World Heavyweight Championship six times and the WWF Championship twice, although the actual number of reigns varies between sources.

The 72-year-old from Memphis was inducted into the WWE Hall of Fame both individually and as a member of the Four Horsemen. He was the first to win the WCW World Heavyweight Championship, having secured the belt after WCW seceded from the NWA in 1991.

On August 2 of last year, he requested the termination of the contract that bound him to WWE. On top of that, the Hall of Famer recently announced that he and his wife Wendy Barlow have split up. The couple got married in 2018.

In the latest edition of his Wooooo Nation Uncensored podcast, the Nature Boy said he was sorry that no one from WWE has contacted him during this time. Flair said: "When a couple separates, it's always a personal failure.

Nothing particularly bad happened in our relationship. I like traveling, being around people, signing autographs, but Wendy was tired of all this. I was very sorry that no one from WWE contacted me during this time. A phone call would have been enough to find out if everything was okay.

In some ways, WWE is the most insensitive company in the world. They act as if you don't exist. Someone must have convinced Vince McMahon that Johnny Knoxville's participation in the men's Royal Rumble match would increase the show.

Things didn't exactly turn out that way. I have nothing personal against Knoxville, they are keen to point this out. He seems like a very good person to me, but he has no connection with professional wrestling. I respect the choice of WWE executives, but I do not agree with it for the reasons I have explained."

Laureus Awards: Brady, Dressel, Djokovic, Ledecky, McKeon

The names of all the nominees for the World Sports Awards, the Oscars of sport, have been announced.

Six tennis players stand out among the nominees, and above all the name of Novak Djokovic. The jury, made up of 1300 journalists from all over the world, will vote the winners for each category and the awards ceremony will be held in April in virtual mode, and will be followed by the vote of a noble jury of 71 sports legends.

Novak Djokovic is also among the candidates for the Sportsman of the Year award. After the exciting season lived last year, in which the Serbian number one came close to the grand slam by winning three slams out of four and surrendering in the final to Medvedev at the US Open (last major of the year), Djokovic was at the center of an international case for his exclusion from the Australian Open for reasons related to his vaccination status, a tournament later won by Nadal who beat him by a slam (21 against 20).

The Serbian will return to the field at the ATP 500 in Dubai. The other nominees for this award are Max Verstappen (winner of the F1 world championship), Tom Brady (historic quarterback who at 44 this year will bid farewell to American football after 22 years), Bayern Munich striker Robert Lewandowski, the American swimmer.

Caeleb Dressel and Olympic gold medalist Eliud Kipchoge in the marathon. In the women's category, nomination for recent Australian Open champion Ashleigh Barty. The Australian tennis player will compete for the prize against Katie Ledecky (USA) and Emma McKeon (Australia), the two sprinters Elaine Thompson-Herah (Jamaica) and Allyson Felix (USA) and the Spanish footballer Alexia Putellas.

Daniil Medvedev and Emma Raducanu, both returning from a 2021 in which they won their first career slam (albeit at different ages), are candidates for the revelation award of the year. Among the other candidates also the Barcelona footballer Pedri, also protagonist with the Spanish national team.

The two wheelchair players Diede De Groot (Netherlands) and Shingo Kunieda (Japan) are vying for the disability sportsman of the year award. In the Team of the Year category there is also the Italian national football team, victorious at the Europeans, which will have to overcome the competition of the Mercedes AMG Petronas F1 team, which has won the eighth consecutive constructors' world title; the Milwaukee Bucks, reigning NBA champions; of the Argentine national football team, winner of the Copa America; and the Chinese Olympic diving team, which has won seven gold medals in the eight competitions in which it participated.