Ric Flair is stepping back in the ring for one last match on July 31 at the Nashville Fairgrounds. “The Nature Boy” has been uploading videos of himself back in the ring training with AEW’s Jay Lethal, despite being 73-years-old and five years removed from a nearly-fatal medical emergency where he needed an obstructive piece of his bowel removed and suffered kidney failure. While he initially retired at WrestleMania XXIV in 2008, he would go on to wrestle 16 more matches. The last of which was against his old WCW rival, Sting, on the Sept. 12, 2011, episode of Impact Wrestling.
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The event, titled Jim Crockett Promotions Presents: Ric Flair’s Last Match, will see the revival of the classic promotion for one night as part of Conrad Thompson’s Starrcast V fan event. A press release has since dropped hyping up the event, which reads, “On July 31st, at 6:05pm EDT, ‘The Nature Boy’ Ric Flair, who many consider the greatest professional wrestler of all-time, is set to return to the ring, one final time, as part of “Jim Crockett Promotions Presents: Ric Flair’s Last Match” wrestling event. Taking place at the world famous Nashville Fairgrounds, the 16-time former World Heavyweight Champion will don a new custom-made robe and bring the one-of-a-kind showmanship that has made Flair a cultural icon for his over-40 years in the professional wrestling business.”
“I’m going to walk that aisle, one last time to prove once and for all, that to be the Man, you’ve got to beat the Man,” Flair said in the announcement. Stay tuned for more details.
The 16-time world champion was granted his release from the WWE last summer, then popped up in Lucha Libre AAA and the NWA. He then explained on his podcast that he would not go to WWE’s main competition, All Elite Wrestling, without telling Vince McMahon first.
“There were no discussions at all,” Flair said last November. “I told Vince McMahon that my word is pretty much my bond unless they did something really stupid to me, then I would never go to work for the competition. Now they’ve done some really stupid stuff, so that door is open, but I have not talked to Tony (Khan). I have not heard a word from him. I watch all the shows. I appreciate the athletes and the people that are involved in it, but I’m not actively in discussion with anybody. Yes, I would go to work for Tony Khan. I will never go back to WWE.”
