Another Broken Retirement Promise In The Works?
The Pro Wrestling Torch web site reported yesterday that Ric Flair announced during an England appearance over the weekend that he is in talks to come out of retirement for some big money matches in Japan. He's apparently justifying going back on his promise never to wrestle again by saying his retirement only applied to the U.S. and Europe.
I'll have to go back and watch the tapes of A.M. Raw in the weeks leading up to Flair’s retirement match at WrestleMania, but I'm fairly sure among the crawlers at the bottom of the screen was not any fine print to the effect of, "Ric Flair's retirement is valid only in all 50 states and Europe."
Having been in attendance for each night of Flair's historic three-night farewell ceremony, I am, to say the least, disheartened at the notion that I may not have seen the final match in the career of the greatest wrestler who ever lived.
There was no equivocating from Flair at the time. He was absolutely, under no circumstances, ever, ever, never, ever, ever going to wrestle again. Ever. So while I am disappointed to hear Flair apparently go back on his word, I am not surprised. A byproduct of being the greatest wrestler who ever lived is that you are, by definition, all about the business. And fake retirements among wrestlers are as time honored a tradition as they come.
With all the pomp and circumstance surrounding Flair's retirement, I think a lot of us wanted to give Flair the benefit of the doubt that his retirement would actually stick. But what was also clear about Flair was that he was still having fun out there. Heck, at nearly 60 years old, and with the help of Shawn Michaels, Flair delivered one of the best matches of the year.
Another important factor in making the decision to retire at the time may the steady support system Flair had in place in the form of his wife and WWE, which offered him both financial security, and people who had Flair’s best interest at heart. Flair has since lost both of those anchors, perhaps making the lure of the ring lights much more attractive now than it had been when Flair had other things to live for.
It's hard to begrudge a guy for doing what he loves and making a lot of money doing it. And I certainly wouldn't mind seeing Flair take on Masa Chono or Keiji Muto one more time. But it's impossible for fans not to feel like they've been hoodwinked, just as they've been over the years by Terry Funk, Mick Foley, Randy Savage, Hulk Hogan and the countless other wrestlers who swore they'd never wrestle again, only to be back in the ring within months. Of course, wrestling isn't the only sport in which such promises are broken, just ask the starting QB of our beloved NY Jets.
So here's what I propose for wrestling. Stop announcing retirements. This isn't pro basketball, football or another "real" sport in which age and physical deterioration often leave athletes no choice other than to retire. In pro wrestling, a broken down, 52-year old Hulk Hogan can cleanly defeat Shawn Michaels with his atomic legdrop. A 59-year-old Flair can go on a six-month winning streak defeating wrestlers half his age.
If you don't want to wrestle right now, don't. If in six months you do want to wrestle, welcome back. Why is it necessary to have such finality to a decision? It may not have been quite as moving, but Flair could have had nearly the same tribute to his career over WrestleMania weekend without saying, definitively, that he would never wrestle again. And his word may have still meant something.
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Comments (22)
I always considered Flair's retirement a retirement from the WWE. I don't blame him for going through with that whole storyline because, let's face it, it gave him something to do and a high profile match at Wrestlemania. Sure it's easy to say they should have just honored him and not gone the retirement way, but even the storyline was clear, this wasn't Ric Flair retiring as much as it was Vince McMahon forcing him out.
You can choose to believe that it was just kayfabe, but what do you think would have happened had Flair actually told McMahon that he didn't want to do the retirement angle? Flair would have floundered around and done nothing like he was before the retirement angle started, and possibly have been future endeavored.
I've notice a weird trend - wrestlers who announce their retirement always come back, while wrestlers who don't are usually sincere.
Terry Funk has announced more retirements than most care to list. I hear he's got a match lined up for later this year.
Even Dory Funk Jr. announced a retirement tour of Japan earlier this year, and then came out of retirement a month or two later for his Florida territory/training school.
Steve Austin never made a statement and he hasn't had a match since 2003. Rumor has it that he may have a match at WM 25, but if he does have a match there, I don't expect him to have another one after that.
The Rock never made a statement either, and he hasn't had a match sine 2004.
I think part of the reason for this is that wrestlers who announce their retirement do it for the attention. They get a lot of attention, but then they're "retired" and that attention is gone. They need to feed their "fix" of wrestling and come out of retirement.
The retirements seem to stick if they have something else to do with their life. Steve Austin and The Rock both had movie careers to fall back on after their wrestling careers ended.
Ric Flair, technically, isn't doing anything new. The only difference is that now he's not in the ring. He's still doing autograph sessions. He's still doing an occasional promo. He's still living the "Ric Flair life," but he's not in the ring.
When I heard he was considering coming out of the retirement, I wasn't surprised. I'm torn on it. His career ended so well. Nobody gets that kind of story-book ending. I don't want to see him go to Japan and have a bad match; or worse, get injured.
Someone can correct me if I'm wrong, but I'm pretty sure the Flair retirement-angle was not management's idea. In fact, I'd be surprised if Vince wanted to lose Flair, his credentials, and his ratings power. I know Steve Austin is credited with coming up with the angle - which was later bastardized by WWE writers - but I can't imagine he would do so if Flair didn't want to retire. I was hearing nearly a year before WrestleMania 24 that Flair was planning on hanging them up on that show. I think, like so many other pro athletes, Flair was sincere about wanting to retire, until he got a taste of the retired life, got bored, and missed the paycheck.
When the reitrement angle was conceived, the idea was not that WWE would lose Ric Flair - since both parties expected to continue with Flair assuming a "public relations" role (considering his recent personal publicity, it's probably best it did not work out that way).
The idea of winding down Ric Flair's in-ring career has been discussed for a number of years, and my guess is that it was not Ric Flair who started the talks, but then once they hit the right idea, he probably agreed to it and the talks got more serious from there. As I recall, the whole reason it was reported that Ric Flair left WWE last November (obviously, he did not) was that he was upset that he was taking a mid-card role when he expected to be working an important retirement angle.
The truth - as always - is probably somewhere between the two.
Chris Slater raised great points about retirements often happening after the fact; Bret Hit Man Hart is another good example of a man who wrestled his last match with no one knowing it was his last match, he stepped away and then never came back. Sometimes it's not up to them whether or not they come back, but I think he hit on the key element of getting their "fix" versus trying new things.
Terry Funk and Hulk Hogan have clearly gone back on their words for retirement; the 1991 retirement angle for Randy Macho Man Savage was a storyline retirement like El Duke referenced (just like Ric Flair's 1994 angle in WCW).
Mick Foley's retirement was largely legit, though, because he was working the house show circuit at the time, so he went from wrestling 300 nights a year to wrestling annually. Plus, he has never competed for a championship since his retirement, so if you're career is not over, then (kayfabe) you should be competing for a championship.
Therefore, Ric Flair could continue to wrestle once or twice without truly being out of retirement. As long as he does not compete for the top championships or wrestle on a regular, ongoing basis, then I'll afford him that grey area.
Although, to your point, I would definitely agree that another match out of Ric Flair in any capacity would tarnish the significance of his WrestleMania XXIV match, except I didn't think it was a good match in the first place, so I wouldn't be too upset about that.
Alphonso, did Flair really have that much ratings power? I mean yeah, to you or me it's the Nature Boy, but to the fan the WWE is targeting now he was just some old man with floppy titties. There were very few angles Flair could have been involved with in the WWE at that time that could have drawn a ratings bump. And they did one of them.
As much as I love Flair, he wasn't that active of a performer until Vince McMahon decided to go ahead with the angle to end his career as an active performer. Plus, regardless who came up with the idea (the bastardized version of Austin's idea is what I've heard too), Vinnie Mac's the guy who OKs everything.
Oops. I love misspelling peoples names.
Think of Flair coming out of retirement like an NHL player who retires. They'll drop the occassional puck and play in an annual charity game or two. I don't mind if Flair comes back and wrestles a few times a year. Michael Jordan did it. Guy Lafleur was another. And so was/is Brett Favre.
As for those who announce their retirement, and then don't come back, the wrestlers mentioned all have legitimate reasons to do so. Austin and Hart are injured. They probably would have kept wrestling if possible, but aren't able. The Rock is making movies, so he'd rather have a Hollywood career than a wrestling one.
But Foley, Hogan, Funk, etc. are still able to wrestle. So why not keep at it if they like it so much?
"Mick Foley's retirement was largely legit, though, because he was working the house show circuit at the time, so he went from wrestling 300 nights a year to wrestling annually. Plus, he has never competed for a championship since his retirement, so if you're career is not over, then (kayfabe) you should be competing for a championship"
Actually, Mick's Backlash classic with Randy Orton was for the Intercontinental title, though I'll never understand why since it telegraphed the finish (though really, nobody thought Foley was winning that one anyway).
And also, he competed at Night of Champions last year in that WWE championship challenge thing, even taking the fall.
I still think Mick is retired in the sense that he isn't a regular, active competitor, but I wholeheartedly agree with the assessment that if you're retired, you shouldn't be competing for championships.
So does that mean he might wrestle again in Canada? :-)
If I was at Wrestlemania 24 and the following nights RAW, I'd be a little pissed about this if Flair does indeed decide to start wrestling again.
You guys must have forgotten that I have a family, a mortgage....a life! Unless you're going to be paying my bills.....
I think Jim Ross said it best in his most recent blog:
"I would much rather see Ric wrestle in a "one off" Tokyo Dome environment than ever see him advertised to wrestle in an armory or high school gym in the States. That would be sad."
Foley also main evented Wrestelmania for the WWF title four weeks after he retired and was in the Royal Rumble this year.
I must be missing something here. I know Hogan has had a bunch of comebacks after not wrestling for awhile but has he ever actually come out and said he was going to retire? I don't remember him using the "R" word.
Hogan "retired" on Thanksgiving Day 1998 on the Tonight Show with Jay Leno. But, that was a storyline so that Hogan could "run for President." He was gone until the first Nitro of 1999. Go to YouTube and type in "Fingerpoke of Doom" to see his return match.
Do you think that was a storyline? I am not so sure, I thought Hulk Hogan was serious on "The Tonight Show with Jay Leno," but then quickly changed his tune when the mass media showed zero interest.
Hulkster seems to be the type of guy to surround himself with "yes-men," and I think popular opinion agrees that Hulk Hogan believes his own hype, so as absolutely crazy as the idea is now (and as crazy as it was then), I think there were enough supporters in Hogan's camp to think the idea was feasible (hey, the idea of Jesse The Body Ventura becoming Governor is crazy now, and it was crazy then, but it still happened).
Also, this occurred right before WCW worked out a deal with NBC to air a special Valentine's Day broadcast (opposite WWF's St. Valentine's Day Massacre PPV, of course) but NBC needed WCW to give them all of their top-tier stars, which included Hulk Hogan - thus the NWO reunion was born.
I could be completely wrong - and WCW truly was booked ahead months in advance, but even if that were proven true - I still wouldn't believe it.
I've heard some conflicting reports about it, actually.
In Hogan's autobiography, he plays off the whole incident as a publicity stunt. He says that Ted Turner and Eric Bischoff thought it would be a great idea.
I remember reading an issue of "WOW Magazine" back in the day that said Hulk was "sent home" after his horrible match against The Warrior at Halloween Havoc, and that he was brought back in early 99 after WCW started trying to get a prime time special on NBC. The network wanted Hogan involved to attract viewers. (The whole deal eventually fell apart, as Bischoff details in his book)
If I had to lean one way, I would say that it was a publicity stunt to generate ratings for WCW. His presidential "aspirations" were first brought up during a promo on Monday Nitro, and - at the time - nobody announced a presidential run on late-night tv. Plus, he was back in the ring two months later. Also, keep in mind that this happened right after Jesse Ventura was elected Govenor of Minnesota.
I think Hogan took a vacation, but kept his name in the news, after having one of the worst matches of his career against Warrior @ Halloween Havoc '98.
What's with all this Hollywood Hogan non-sense? Hogan is the orange goblin has been...Hulk Hogan should go and do a reality series, oh wait he has...two of them. What were the names of them? IT DOESN'T MATTER WHAT!!!! This is supposed to be about Ric Flair WOOOOOO! So what if he wants to step into the ring again. The man is Ric Flair, "and don't you forget it!" Do you honestly think that Ric Flair would have never wrestled again? Long live the true immortal, Ric Flair, WOOOOOO!!!!
I was always under the assumption that Hogan's presidential aspirations were part of his yearly sabbatical he took when Monday Night Football took a chunk out of WCW's rating and then he would come back after the regular season ended and claim the ratings bump from the returning MNF fans were actually because of him. The same trick he pulled back when TNT used to move Nitro around for the NBA playoffs.
Hmmm... I'd never heard of Hogan doing that. It doesn't surprise me, and it's actually pretty clever of him.
It's kind of like the "Did You Know" things that WWE is putting up on its shows. Technically it's true, but it's a weird version of the truth.
To be fair "yearly sabbatical" was probably the wrong choice of words. Plus he did it more frequently during the NBA playoffs than during MNF.
I thought that this practice was common knowledge as it was mentioned a few times in the Death of WCW book. Not to mention it was fairly obvious to anybody who was watching at the time who wasn't completly retarded. Well, it was WCW...