Ric Flair will team with Andrade El Idolo to face Jeff Jarrett and Jay Lethal in his last match on Sunday at the Nashville Municipal Auditorium. Flair has spoken in numerous interviews about what he wants from the match and in a new interview with ESPN, it was confirmed that he wanted to dive from the top rope to the floor outside of the ring, something that wasn’t in his repertoire for the majority of his in-ring career. Charlotte Flair, Ric’s daughter, actually had to step in and shut down the idea.
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“A lot of our men and women in all companies miss those all the time,” Charlotte said. “I was like, ‘No, not needed, not necessary. Wasn’t necessary in your prime, isn’t necessary now. So, no.’”
The 16-time world champion mentioned that part of his inspiration to have another match was watching WrestleMania 38, which had surprise matches from both “Stone Cold” Steve Austin and Vince McMahon. Flair’s last match before this weekend was in September 2011 against Sting, one of his oldest rivals, in Impact (TNA) Wrestling.
“I still didn’t think about wrestling, but I really enjoyed watching that,” Flair said. “Steve came out and did a lot more than I thought he would do. Austin competes. That’s what makes him who he is. And Vince? What can I say about Vince? He’s the most competitive guy in the world.”
Flair spoke with ComicBook last month about what he feels the match needs in order to be a fitting finale, saying it needs to exceed the 16 matches he did following his initial retirement at WrestleMania XXIV in 2008.
“It has to be really good, it has to be better than anything I did after Shawn Michaels,” Flair said. “It’s not about the money. It’s all about re-establishing the fact I have my self-confidence. It’s never been higher. Back then, at that time, I was still having self-confidence issues and I was paying out (for his divorces) more to three people and had to go to work. Now I don’t have to do anything.
“But it gave me a goal,” he continued. “I’ve been working out. Kelly (Brewster) and I worked together, as partners in this (his upcoming comic book series) but she also trains with me and it’s a lot of hard work. We drive 45 miles up to John Cena’s place in the morning for an hour and a half. And then we go down to Saint Peak to training like there’s no tomorrow for two hours and it’s a lot more fun for me if I have someone to compete against.”
