Charlotte Flair said the pressure of being Ric Flair’s daughter was never about matching his career, while Cody Rhodes recalled Triple H saying he “can’t see him and not see his dad,” on the first episode of Jacob Heyman’s “The Roundtable,” which premiered Wednesday on the Heyman Hustle YouTube channel.
Jacob Heyman, editor-in-chief of Heyman Hustle TV and the son of Paul Heyman, hosted Flair, Rhodes and actor O’Shea Jackson Jr., the son of Ice Cube and host of the No Contest Wrestling podcast. The hour-long episode covers growing up with famous fathers and the “nepo baby” label. Jackson was revealed as the surprise guest on Monday.
Charlotte Flair: ‘It Was More About Protecting It’
Flair said she did not understand how famous her father was until he retired after losing to Shawn Michaels at WrestleMania 24 in 2008.
“Not until 2008 was I like, holy sh*t, like all these people, like these grown men are crying that he’s retiring,” Flair said.
She said her father was “very much absent” for the first three years of her career, a period when her brother Reid had just died.
“For me, the pressure wasn’t about living up to his legacy. It was more about protecting it,” Flair said. “I felt like I had to be perfect. Like everything I did, I would be compared to him.”
Flair pointed to the parallels people draw between them: “16 time, 14 time. He’s been divorced. I’ve been divorced.” She added that she drove a used Mini Cooper until the COVID-19 pandemic, while her father “lives in those suits.”
Flair also said she recently asked her father what he could not get past mentally during his career. He told her it was being made to cut his hair, because “when I went through the Charlotte airport, no one knew who I was.” Flair first named Eric Bischoff. Rhodes asked whether it was Jim Herd, and Flair agreed. “He couldn’t run a Pizza Hut,” Rhodes said of the former WCW executive.
Flair closed the episode by saying she asked her father whether he ever loved anything more than wrestling.
“He said, ‘I loved your brother and you.’ … ‘That brought me joy,'” Flair said. “There will never be another one of him.”
Cody Rhodes On Triple H And Dusty Rhodes
Rhodes said Paul “Triple H” Levesque is one of his “work dads,” along with Michael Hayes, and recalled Levesque saying at a press conference that he could not look at Rhodes without seeing Dusty Rhodes.
“He’s like, ‘I just can’t see him and not see his dad.’ And I remember thinking like, well, dang,” Rhodes said. “I hope I do enough that that changes at some point. Maybe it has.”
Rhodes said he first learned who his father was as a performer in the parking lot of the Omni in Atlanta. He said he tried to walk out behind Sting, his favorite wrestler, and his father stopped him by putting a hand across his chest.
“He said, ‘You should never steal another man’s pop,'” Rhodes said. “And my dad walked out and this parking lot in Atlanta lost its freaking mind.”
Rhodes said that if his father could hear everything he has done since his death, including selling 11,236 tickets for an event fans “didn’t even know what it was,” helping start his own company and finishing the story Dusty Rhodes started against Superstar Billy Graham, it would not matter as much as hearing he has a daughter.
“He could have cared less about everything I said,” Rhodes said.
Rhodes also told a story about upgrading his father to first class on a flight to Sacramento for an angle with Rey Mysterio, only to find out Dusty Rhodes was already a “Flying Colonel,” a status from a defunct Delta frequent flyer program.
“I thought it was tall tale. I thought it was a legend,” Rhodes said. “And like it wasn’t.”
Rhodes said Dusty Rhodes’s advice to him was always “hit your finish.” Flair said the advice her father gave her before her Hell in a Cell match with Sasha Banks was “feel it.”
Jacob Heyman Reveals Ponytail Decision
Heyman said he first saw his father on television on May 7, 2012, around his eighth birthday, when Paul Heyman returned to Raw as Brock Lesnar’s representative. Heyman said his father told him Lesnar was going to sing him happy birthday on the show.
“Oh my god, Brock’s going to wish me happy birthday, and ladies and gentlemen, my dad walks through the curtain,” Heyman said.
Asked to reveal something about his father that had never been made public, Heyman said he was the one who told Paul Heyman to cut his ponytail.
“This is breaking news. I’ve never revealed this to the world, but uh I told him to cut the ponytail. That was my idea,” Heyman said. “My dad’s played a heel on TV for what was it? 40 years. And he’s the biggest baby face of my life.”
O’Shea Jackson Jr. On Ice Cube
Jackson said he did not grasp his father’s impact until he turned 18 and worked on the crew for Ice Cube’s tour. He said a doctor in Australia told him Ice Cube’s music helped him leave gang life and become a doctor.
Jackson said he grew up watching his father lose at the MTV Movie Awards, and that after winning one himself for “Straight Outta Compton,” he decided to go after every award his father did not get and give them to his mother.
“Adam Sandler always won,” Jackson said of watching his father at the MTV awards. “I got to bring the popcorn home.”
Jackson said Ice Cube’s public image differs from the father he knows.
“He told me one time, he said, ‘There’s no good time for bad news. Just tell me,'” Jackson said. “No matter what it is, it can be anything in the world that you feel like you have f**ked up, I’m still going to love you.”
The episode was filmed in New York City at Looking4Larry/MCM Studios. Mitchell Stuart directed it, and Paul Heyman served as executive producer.
