I’ve pretty much stopped watching wrasslin’, mostly due to the great Hornswaggle debacle of 2007. But I tuned in tonight to find out what happened at Wrestlemania. I was surprised to find out that Ric Flair was retiring. Just an angle? I thought so, but now I don’t.
At the end of the show, Flair gave his retirement speech, which was basically a thank you to the fans. Then HHH came out and thanked Flair and introduced a bunch of other guys who wanted to say thanks as well–guys I haven’t seen in a long time–The Four Horsemen, including Arn Anderson, JJ Dillon, Dean Milenko, Tully Blanchard, and Barry Windham. Lots of other old school wrestlers too–Ricky Steamboat, Greg Valentine, and Harley Race. Then some prominent guys who are currently wrestling and are close to Flair personally came out, then the whole cast came out.
Flair was crying, and everyone in the arena was chanting, “Thank you Ric!” A very nice way to pay tribute to a guy who IS professional wrestling, at least to people of my generation.
Whooo!
By the way, noticeably absent? Vincent K. McMahon.
My wrestling viewing ended back in the day of “Junkyard Dog” when I realized it might not be on the up and up like Tour de France, for example.
JYD–RIP.
Yeah, it kills me when people say they don’t like wrestling because it’s fake. What?! Really?!
My favorite response–“what’s your favorite TV show?”
As soon as they answer I start in on how fake it is, especially if their answer is ‘The O’Reilly Factor’.
😛