By the time that 2007 rolled around Ric Flair’s second WWE run, which had begun back in 2001 in a non-wrestling role had lost much of it’s lustre. In the ring, he teamed with Carlito before backing a brief attempt to win the United States Championship.
On the August 3rd edition of SmackDown Flair was injured in storyline by the Great Khali and disappeared from television. He wouldn’t return until the November 26th edition of Monday Night Raw in his hometown of Charlotte, North Carolina.
“I Don’t Think Ric Flair Wanted To Retire” – Bruce Prichard
On the show the Nature Boy famously teased that his career was over before vowing that he would never retire! Despite this, Vince McMahon announced later in the show that when Flair lost his next match he would be forced to end his career. This led to a series of “career threatening matches” which ran all of the way up to WrestleMania XXIV when he was finally defeated by Shawn Michaels.
Speaking on his podcast, Something To Wrestle, Bruce Prichard opened up about how the deal for Flair’s final run came together. The long-time WWE Executive also said that he believed Flair didn’t want to retire.
“Obviously, I don’t think Ric wanted to retire. But at the same time, Ric, you know, was also looking at how many more years can I do this? And given the option of let’s do a big retirement thing and then use you, utilise you as that guy that is the spokesman for WWE and able to go out and do appearances and still continue to be Ric Flair.
It seemed that idea had appealed to him at the time, obviously it didn’t. But that was the pitch. I mean, that was the reason for bringing Ric back and to tell that story as time went on. But yeah, you’ll learn something new every day he was going to be in the lending business. And then all these years later, his daughter would land, well would marry the lender of all lenders.”
Despite retiring, Ric Flair was back in action less than two years later before embarking on an ill-fated stint with TNA. Flair wrestled his most retirement match on July 31st, 2022, at a special Jim Crockett Promotions event where he teamed with Andrade El Idolo to defeat Jay Lethal and Jeff Jarrett.
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