FREDDIE FLINTOFF has revealed that he almost joined the WWE under a brilliant new name.

The former England all-rounder could have swapped the wicket for a ring if it had not been for his family.

Flintoff, 47, fell out of love with cricket and had his first retirement in 2010 before calling it for a final time in 2014 after spells with Lancashire and the Brisbane Roar.

This led to him moving to Dubai with his family in order “hide” away.

However, he could have been wowing crowds at WrestleMania and the Royal Rumble if he had accepted an offer from the WWE.

Speaking on The Overlap and Betfair’s Stick to Cricket show, Flintoff said: “We moved to Dubai – the plan was, I was going to play in the IPL and I was going to play for Brisbane, basing ourselves in Dubai.

“Unashamedly, if I could earn a bit of IPL money tax-free I’m sorted.

“When I had to retire, we decided to go through with it anyway and it was probably a good move getting away, my lifestyle wasn’t great at the time.

“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 continued to explain that the WWE interest stemmed from his idea while working on Sky’s A League Of Their Own.

He wanted to take on the Undertaker as a part of the comedy quiz show.

The cricket legend took part in a WWE academy trial and was offered a three-year deal on “obscene” money despite leaving with broken ribs.

He added: “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.

“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.

“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.”

Flintoff is now coaching the England Lions cricket team after landing the job in 2024.

He has an upcoming tour with the team against South Africa in August.

He got the job after recovering from his 2022 horror car crash while working as a presenter for the BBC’s Top Gear.

The star suffered life-changing injuries and withdrew from public life until he made his return to the England set-up in 2023.