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WrestleMania XXIV Rewind: Ric Flair vs. Shawn Michaels

By Rob Wolkenbrod

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Shawn Michaels vs. Ric Flair in a Career Threatening match occurred at WrestleMania XXIV. If Flair lost, he would be forced to retire. 

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Preview

Ric Flair challenged Shawn Michaels to a WrestleMania match on an edition of Monday Night Raw. Michaels would reluctantly accept this, knowing that Flair’s next loss would result in a forced retirement (Vince McMahon declared this).

Flair had went through six different opponents to keep his career alive. However, would Michaels be the one to end his career?

The Match

Seeing Ric Flair walk down the ramp for the last time for a match still gives me goosebumps.

HBK and Flair lock up in hammer locks to begin the bout. Flair hits an arm-drop and does his little strut to get the crowd going, angering Michaels.

Flair and Michaels eventually started trading chops, and The Nature Boy yelled “Old Yeller?” at Michaels. However, Michaels would retaliate with a few hits to the mouth, leaving Flair bloodied.

Moments later, we see Flair climb to the top rope and do a cross-body! Who would have thought he could do that at 59 years old?

Flair would eventually get tossed out of the ring, leading to Michaels attempting a moon-salt from the apron. However, he missed his mark and flew right into the announcer’s table. HBK had to push himself to get back into the ring at the count of seven.

Once HBK returned to the ring, the momentum began to sway towards Flair. He was hitting moves on him like it was 1993 again!

Michaels eventually got up, leading to the two trading some chops. Michaels ended up hitting a neck-breaker and began taking control from there. Once he got Flair out of the ring, Michaels went for another moon-salt and connected this time around. The two stars barely got back into the ring.

Michaels then hit a couple of atomic drops to set up an elbow off the top rope, connecting it on Flair’s chest. This left The Nature Boy laying down in pain. With Michaels seeing this, he tried tuning up the band for Sweet Chin Music. As he went to hit it on Flair, HBK pulled up, not wanting to take him out. Flair took advantage, countering with a very nice looking Figure Four Leg-Lock. It looked like Michaels had nowhere to go! He was able to reverse the pressure, which led to Flair grabbing the ropes.

The action started to pick up again with Michaels countering a few moves into a sunset flip, nearly getting a pinfall.

Flair then took out Michaels’s legs with a dirty looking chop-block. A few moments later, he was able to lock in another Figure Four. Would he tap out?

Michaels would end up in a ton of pain, but grabbed the ropes to break the hold.

Just as it looked like Flair was going to continue his assault, HBK hit Sweet Chin Music out of nowhere! This stunned the crowd. He went for the pin, but Flair kicked out at two!

Michaels lined up in the corner for another SCM but Flair was in too much pain. He yelled at him to get up, as Michaels continued to tune up the band. He tried picking up Flair, who hit HBK with a low blow! He went for the pin, but was only able to get to two.

Michaels then put the Figure Four on Flair, who was barely able to get to the ropes.

After another near-pinfall, the two started trading chops. After one of Flair’s chops, Michaels hit another SCM out of nowhere!

Michaels then went back into the corner to try to tune up the band, but he stopped, feeling bad for Flair. The Nature Boy slowly rose up with two fists in the air, trying to put a fight. HBK said “I’m sorry, I love you” and hit him with one last SCM to pin Flair and end his career.

Final Thoughts

This was a terrifically told story throughout the match. It displayed Michaels feeling bad for Flair and not wanting to end his career. However, he put him out of his misery in the end.

This match was the last one in the career of the WWE Hall of Famer Ric Flair. This match showed why he is one of the best of all-time.

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