Inside the Ring

Book excerpt: Tiffany is on a mission to empower women's voices by sharing her own deeply personal story of struggling to survive a turbulent celebrity marriage and finding the courage to take control of her life. They were a dream team. Superstar WWE wrestler Ric Flair was the flamboyant athlete and showman. Stunning, statuesque, and half his age, Tiffany VanDeMark was the determined and no-nonsense fitness coach who eventually became his wife. But while admirers saw a match made in heaven, the reality was more like one of Ric's matches in the wrestling ring-dramatic, violent, and scripted to ensure he would always gain the upper hand. This new memoir takes you behind the closed doors of their larger-than-life celebrity marriage to reveal the pain and heartache behind the media hype and lavish lifestyle of one of the WWE's greatest champions. Recounting both their darkest hours and interludes of happiness, Tiffany traces how her childhood traumas and those of adopted child Richard Morgan Fliehr inevitably drew them to each other-and ultimately proved their undoing. Tiffany's raw and honest narrative gives us a ringside seat through her ten-year journey from hard-nosed trainer to loving partner to battered survivor. She shares the intimate and inspiring story of walking back the abusive pattern to its origins in her childhood-inner work that gave her the faith and courage to end the cycle of abuse, reclaim her personal power and step out of the ring forever.