WWE Hall of Famer Declined Spot in Ric Flair's Last Match

The Nature Boy laced up his boots for one final time this past July at Ric Flair's Last Match. Flair, a 73-year-old wrestling veteran, teamed with son-in-law Andrade El Idolo to take on Jay Lethal and Jeff Jarrett. The bout received a mixed response from fans and fellow wrestlers, who above all else emphasized their respect to Flair for going out and giving it his all. Flair himself admitted that he passed out twice during the bout 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."

Flair himself might've worked even less of the match if original plans had gone through. Speaking on The Sessions with Renee Paquette, Diamond Dallas Page revealed Flair wanted him in the main event contest as well, which would've made it a trios match.

"Ric Flair actually called me and asked me if I would be in the match with him and do a six-man. At first he said, 'How old are you?' I said, '66.' He said, 'I've seen you. You're in great shape. I really would love to have you in this match,'" Page said (h/t WrestlingNews.co). "I said, 'Ric, I can't do it. I feel so good. I can't take a chance of hurting myself.' He said, 'I feel great.' I said, 'You're not from this planet.' That's when he talked me into doing the roast."

DDP has not regularly wrestled since the early 2000s, but the master of the Diamond Cutter has made one-off appearances in recent years. Page most recently teamed with Dustin Rhodes and QT Marshall at AEW Bash at the Beach in January 2020 in a losing effort to MJF, The Butcher and The Blade.

If Page ever gets the itch to wrestle again, he won't have to look far for a final opponent. Matt Cardona, who was on the receiving end of a Diamond Cutter at Ric Flair's Last Match, told ComicBook.com he wants his revenge on DDP.

"I was there for Starrcast. We had a live Major Wrestling Figure podcast. Did the meet and greet at Starrcast. And I was not originally booked on that show, but the Major Players [Cardona and Brian Myers] made sure we were booked on that show," Cardona said. "And then DDP comes out. God damn DDP hit me with a diamond cutter from the back. I owed DDP something. I owe DDP something. Maybe we'll have DDP's last match next year."

Ric Flair's Last Match is available for replay purchase on FITE.

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