Ric Flair stepped in the squared circle for one last time this past month. Teaming with son-in-law Andrade El Idolo, the two took on the tandem of Jeff Jarrett and Jay Lethal. The match itself garnered mixed reactions from fans, as a bulk of it featured Flair seemingly passed out on the canvas. Flair did take some spots, both his bumps were kept to a minimum. That didn’t stop the Nature Boy from donning the crimson mask, as he began bleeding roughly halfway through the match.
The stars were out for Flair’s farewell, as the trio of the Undertaker, Mick Foley, and Bret Hart sat ringside for their friend’s match. Hart briefly spoke with Flair when he was returning up the aisle, and while it was inaudible on the broadcast, the Hitman revealed to Bill Apter that it was simply a sign of admiration.
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“I just congratulated him and let him know that I appreciated what he did and what he was trying to do,” Hart said. “There’s not too many guys that would have the guts to go in there and do what Ric Flair did, and I admire that about him.”
Hart and Flair are no strangers to each other in the ring. The two wrestled on numerous occasions, for both WWF and WCW. The Best There Is even captured his first WWF Title by dethroning Flair at a WWF house show in 1992. The two would eventually lock up again in WCW at Souled Out, where Hart won again by submission. That match would run for 18 minutes.
Hart commented that Flair’s final match was far from the classics that they used to put on together, but he still praises him for trying.
“It wasn’t a Bret Hart vs. Ric Flair match, but it was… That’s what happens when a 73-year-old guy wrestles,” Hart continued. “It’s not the easiest thing to do and I think everybody realized how hard it was for him to do that. In the end, I stand and I applaud him.”
Flair recently confirmed that he did in fact pass out during the contest due to dehydration.
“I don’t think people realized that I passed out twice. Well what happened was, my regimentation for training was so strict that I kept my weight, I wanted my perfect weighty to be like 220 going in,” Flair explained. “So the last day, the last day and a half, aside from all the work that we had planned for me to do, I didn’t hydrate. I had it in my mind that I had to weigh 219. So I went to the ring and I’m like 217 pounds, and what happened during the body of the match is I just became dehydrated. I actually, when I was standing on the apron, I looked at Jay, which started a wheel of motion. I said, ‘Man, I think I’m getting sick’ because I was getting light-headed. Nothing to do with my heart or nothing to do with my intestines. I was getting light-headed. I’m sure a lot of it was nerves as well. So I think Jay said, ‘Guys, we gotta move this along’, when that isn’t what I meant. But to the point when [Andrade] came over and said, ‘Your turn, sir. Your turn, sir.’ So I got in and I didn’t know where we were in the match because I had missed about clearly like 10 seconds of it.”
Ric Flair’s Last Match is still available for replay purchase on FITE TV.
