Ric Flair has commented on the last time he ever squared off against Sting.
Throughout his legendary career, Ric Flair has been synonymous with matches against Sting. The two WWE Hall of Famers competed against one another on numerous occasions including the first WCW Nitro in 1995 and the last WCW Nitro in 2001.
Their final ever outing took place on TNA Impact on September 15, 2011. On the most recent episode of his To Be The Man podcast, Flair discussed how he felt at the time and how another match against ‘The Stinger’ came about:
“I don’t, I don’t know who thought of it. I didn’t think I was up to it by any means because I wasn’t taking anything serious at that point in my life. That was just you know, marriage number four turning into a catastrophe and I went back to work because I needed money, plain and simple.
But I really had a good time there and all the, look at the roster, just a bunch of great people, fun people to be around. I mean I saw Jeff all the time. I saw Kurt all the time. Bully Ray, I mean, a lot of great people. I worked with Abyss and I became good friends, I believe his first name was Chris, and I got to know him better at WWE than I did there.
Then I got to wrestle Foley there, I guess someone just said why don’t we just do Sting and Flair one more time? I don’t even know how we did in terms of a rating. But you know, I just wasn’t prepared and I just never recovered.”
The match was originally scheduled to take place at the TNA No Surrender pay-per-view but ended up taking place on an episode of IMPACT! instead. Flair revealed he “didn’t care where it was” when asked by co-host Conrad Thompson if he was glad it was on TV or if he would have preferred the match to have been on PPV:
“I didn’t care where it was. I was happy to be in the ring with him. I really at that point, people don’t believe that, but I just didn’t have the confidence to do anything unless I was really comfortable with the guy. Like I was comfortable with Jay, I was comfortable with AJ and AJ carried me all those guys carried me at that point in my career. But they were such nice people.”
Ric Flair also commented on Ricky The Dragon’ Steamboat getting back in the ring. Steamboat will be returning to the ring at Big Time Wrestling’s ‘Return of The Dragon’ event in Raleigh, North Carolina on the 27th of November. The star declined to be part of Flair’s last match earlier in the year.
If you use any quotes from this transcription, please link back to this article with a h/t to Inside the Ropes.