A Big Hint That Ric Flair Might Appear at AEW All Out

Between the Daniel Bryan rumors, Adam Cole's free agency and Ruby Soho's vignettes on social [...]

By Connor Casey

Between the Daniel Bryan rumors, Adam Cole's free agency and Ruby Soho's vignettes on social media, AEW's All Out pay-per-view could feature some major surprises this Sunday in Chicago. But there's another name that might pop up at some point during the night — "The Nature Boy" Ric Flair. Flair was released by WWE back at the start of the month and reportedly doesn't have a 90-day "No Compete" clause that typically comes with WWE release, which allowed him to pop up at Triplemania XXIX alongside Andrade El Idolo a few weeks back and at NWA 73 this past weekend.

Flair confirmed with Renee Paquette on this week's Oral Sessions that he'll be in Chicago this weekend for the pay-per-view alongside his future son-in-law, but didn't confirm if he'll actually appear on camera. He mentioned that if he wanted to sign with any other promotion, including AEW, he'd run it by Vince McMahon first.

"Hypothetically, if I wanted to go work at AEW, I would go to [Vince] and say, 'I want to do this and want to get back in the ring and I know you don't like that, if I wanted to get knocked down or something. He would say to me, 'Ultimately, what's best for you is best for me.'"

Flair also explained why he requested his release from WWE — "I had a bunch of pending opportunities. I had things that I was doing currently at the time I signed my contract. They allowed those. Wendy got to keep her shop. These are big things. I got to keep cameo and a couple other things. A couple of deals were coming along and I got to the point where, I was asking them, I probably exhausted them asking, not to grandfather me in, but to let me do them. Of course, the answer was, 'You can do them, maybe.' I wanted to finally, which I did for three years, make a living not being under a wrestling payroll. That's all it was. There is no animosity, it's just business. I wanted to try something and they had a different vision."

Check out the full lineup for All Out below:

  • AEW World Championship: Kenny Omega vs. Christian Cage
  • AEW World Tag Team Championships: The Young Bucks vs. The Lucha Bros. (Steel Cage Match)
  • AEW Women's World Championship: Dr. Britt Baker vs. Kris Statlander
  • AEW TNT Championship: Miro vs. Eddie Kingston
  • CM Punk vs. Darby Allin
  • Pac vs. Andrade El Idolo
  • Chris Jericho vs. MJF
  • Jon Moxley vs. Satoshi Kojima
  • Paul Wight vs. QT Marshall
  • Women's Casino Battle Royale: Thunder Rosa vs. Nyla Rose vs. The Bunny vs. Julia Hart vs. Red Velvet vs. Tay Conti vs. Penelope Ford vs. Diamante vs. TBA

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