Andrew Flintoff, on Monday, revealed how he almost transitioned from being one of England’s cricketing greats to facing off against The Undertaker, after being offered an “obscene” deal by WWE shortly after his retirement from cricket. The deal ultimately fell through when he turned down the offer from WWE co-founder Vince McMahon.
Flintoff, who played 227 international matches across formats during his 12-year career for England, retired in 2010. He briefly returned to the sport during the 2014–15 Big Bash League, playing for Brisbane Heat.
During his initial retirement stint, the 47-year-old was famously approached by WWE with a lucrative contract that included appearances at Royal Rumble and WrestleMania, culminating in a showdown with The Undertaker. Flintoff even spent two weeks training at the WWE Performance Centre in Tampa, but ultimately declined the offer, opting not to relocate to the United States despite the massive payday.
Speaking on The Overlap’s Stick to Cricket, Flintoff revealed that he started receiving broadcasting offers after his retirement, which is when he stumbled upon the WWE deal.
He said: “I just hid for a bit and started to wonder, ‘What am I going to do now?’ Some of the TV offers started to come, which was never the plan – I stumbled into that. I nearly joined the WWE, I didn’t want to box, that was never the plan! I would have been called ‘Big Fred’!”
Flintoff then opened up on his pitch to fight the Undertaker in Manchester and his training for the big bout.
He continued: “What happened was, it got to a point in Dubai where I was unfit, I’d put weight on and I was just not in a good place. I wanted to get fit again, but I needed motivation. As a kid, I loved WWE, so I came up with this idea, because I was doing League of Their Own with Sky, to fight the Undertaker in Manchester.
“I wrote this treatment up and presented the idea to Sky, it started gathering momentum and next minute it’s being passed onto WWE. I was in contact with the WWE, Vince McMahon!
“Dave Roberts’ Rooster’ who was a physiotherapist who lived with us throughout my career, lived with us and looked after us. I asked him to send a trainer over to Dubai for six weeks because I needed to bulk up.
“He sent this fella over, I trained my nuts off, got fit and then the WWE flew me to Tampa. Me and the missus have gone over to Tampa, I’ve got two weeks at wrestling academy.
“They fly us over business class, next morning we get in the car and go to WWE’s academy, two massive units all branded. We’re sitting in the car and these things are walking past me, like 6ft 8in monsters.
“My missus asked, are you going to be okay? I said, ‘Yeah, I’ll be fine.’ I walked in – on the first day, nobody liked me because it’s really competitive with 60 of us all wanting a contract with the WWE – then this English lad walked in.”
‘Mate, I think I’ve broken my ribs’
However, Flintoff was quickly handed a reality check as he understood how intense and dangerous WWE was after suffering broken ribs.
He added: “So I go in and we do the warm-ups, then they put me in the ring for three hours and I just ran the ropes, I’d run into someone and they’d throw me.
“The second day I went in there, I had lashes all down my back and my missus said, ‘Are you alright with this?’ I was sore and thought something’s not right here.
“I said to this physio, ‘I think I’m having a back spasm,’ so they’re all like, ‘Ohh the English lad’s got a back spasm,’ so they put me on the couch, he’s pushing me and I can feel my ribs separating.
“I said, ‘Mate, I think I’ve broken my ribs.’ He said I’d be in so much pain and I was like, ‘Mate, I want to cry but I can’t in there.’ I went for an X-ray and this fella who puts it up asked, ‘What do you do’?, I said, ‘I’m a wrestler,’ He asked, ‘How long have you been doing this’ and I said, ‘Two days.’
“We did all of that – on the third day, you do acting lessons, but I didn’t think I was in on it. I was just sitting minding my own business and they said, ‘Fred, you’re up.’ I got up, and I had the microphone in my hand saying how hard I am, but I didn’t like that so said, ‘Can I do another?’ I looked out and there were all of these weird and wonderful-looking people, so I just tore them all a new one. They were trying to get me to wind up after two minutes, but I was not finished.”
However, the deal eventually collapsed after Flintoff realised that he wanted to move back to Dubai and that his kids were interested in cricket and did not want to go to America.
“Two weeks later, I got an email from WWE, saying, ‘You can’t do your documentary because you’ll give the secrets away, we want to put you on a three-year contract.’
“They said, ‘We’ll fast-track you and in 18 months you’ll be at WrestleMania and Royal Rumble.’
“The money was obscene, but we wanted to move back from Dubai.
“The kids wanted to play cricket and didn’t want to go to America, so I just changed it to boxing and had a fight instead.”
In 2012, Flintoff made his only appearance on professional fighting, where he faced Richard Dawson in Manchester.
