Conrad Thompson has revealed that Ric Flair regrets continuing to wrestle after his famous retirement match against Shawn Michaels at WrestleMania 24.
When Ric Flair signed with WWE in late 2001, he originally believed that his in-ring career was over. However, after taking on Vince McMahon at the 2002 Royal Rumble, Flair began to wrestle with increasing regularity.
After returning from injury in November 2007, Flair announced that he would “never retire.” This set up a storyline where Vince McMahon declared that the next time Flair lost his career would be over.
The storyline ran all of the way to WrestleMania 24 the following year where Flair was famously defeated by Shawn Michaels. Despite huge fan-fare, and an emotional send off on Raw the following night, Flair was back in action by late 2009.
Flair wrestled his most recent match against Sting on an episode of IMPACT Wrestling in September 2011, but on July 31st the Nature Boy will be back in action one more time. At Starrcast V, the 16-time World Champion will team with Andrade El Idolo to take on Jeff Jarrett and Jay Lethal.
Speaking on a recent conference call, Conrad Thompson, who is promoting the event, said that Flair regrets returning to the ring after his WrestleMania send-off.
“He regrets wrestling after WrestleMania 24. What a perfect send-off WWE gave him with that Shawn Michaels match, and then the next night on Monday Night Raw. I mean, that’s a send-off that nobody, not just in wrestling but in sports gets, so it was really special. But for a variety of reasons, he did wrestle after that.”
As a result, Thompson is aiming to give Flair a proper farewell on July 31st.
“Unfortunately, his last match was on a soundstage in Orlando, and that is not to disparage anything, but it was just a random TV show. It wasn’t a celebration that could anywhere mirror or rival what happened in 2008. I’m not saying that we are going to be able to either, but it does feel like there will be more of an effort to celebrate his legacy.”
The 16-time World Champion recently disclosed that he is dealing with an injury ahead of the bout, but he’ll still be in the ring come the big night.
H/t to Sportskeeda for the transcription.