Slick Ric's last dance!

Ric Flair’s last hurrah!

Unlike every other walk of life where when you retire you do exactly that, the world of wrestling paints a very different picture of what exactly hanging up the boots and tights for good means. Some grapplers have stayed away for good, but many miss the limelight, need the roar of the crowd or simply cannot cope financially without the big pay check’s they get from stepping in the ring. Mick Foley, Ultimate Warrior, Roddy Piper, Shawn Michaels, Terry Funk, The Rock, Steve Austin, Big Show, Chris Jericho, JBL and many more superstars past and present have walked away from the sport and returned in some capacity for varying reasons, some successfully and some not so. With the ongoing lose and you retire stipulation in every match he competes in ‘Nature Boy’ Ric Flair is working his way towards one final big-time payday before he puts those OTT ring robes in mothballs forever. With a win over MVP at the Royal Rumble Slick Ric is edging closer to Wrestlemania and one more hurrah at the ‘granddaddy of them all’ before he hangs up his boots for good. But where will the styling and profiling, Lear jet flying, rolex wearing, living legend that is Ric Flair go and what will he do if he is forced to retire this year. In February he will be 59 years old and has without a doubt left enough of a legacy that he will never be forgotten and those whooo’s that echo through arenas accompanying knife edge chops will always be associated with him. He has sold out arenas over the world, competed with the best wrestlers, booked matches, had huge storylines, bled for his business countless times and regularly (in his prime) competed in hour long scraps that today’s stars wouldn’t even try to emulate. So will Ric retire?, who knows but it’s hard to imagine the high life loving ‘Nature Boy’ staying away from the squared circle for long, used wisely and sporadically the current roster of the WWE would benefit from Naitch’s experience and knowledge of ring-manship, he would be a marvellous manager or commissioner and would still be able to let his ego be fulfilled whilst not tarnishing his credibility as a legend by putting in poor matches that reduce him to a joke of a character that he simply should never be. Flair’s money woes are like the man himself the stuff of legend and his love of all things expensive will mean that he most probably needs to remain an active performer in some capacity, the storyline revolving around his retirement and it’s eventual outcome will make for some great viewing, his decision there after even more so. With 16 world title to his name and such a glorious career I’d hate to see those achievement ruined by a man’s egotism, here’s hoping the WWE and Ric can come up with a plan that keeps us all happy. After all he may have always said ‘To be the man, You have to beat the man’, but Ric you’ll always be the man in all of our eyes, you’ve no one left to beat to prove that.

By Phil Allely