| Date: 03/27 | 12:00 PM |
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From now until WrestleMania XXIV we will count down to "The Grandest Stage of Them All" with a series of editorials taking a look at the show in Orlando. This week long series culminates on Saturday, March 29th - the last day before 24th annual WrestleMania takes places. In our fifth entry we take a look at the match with potentially the most historical significance - Ric Flair v. Shawn Michaels.
You don't have to look long or hard to find good things to say about THE HEARTBREAK KID or THE NATURE BOY. In fact there's a fair argument to be made for either man being the greatest wrestler alive today; if you're not willing to go that far, then you can say they are the greatest of their respective generations. Neither one has had trouble filling up a DVD with classic wrestling moments. Hell you could do a 10-disc set on either man and probably just scratch the surface of their accomplishments. It's not really about the titles they've won given you can stack a tall mountain of belts between the two men; no, it's about the indelible memories they've given us win or lose over the years. Both have put their bodies on the line for the sake of entertainment to a degree you couldn't humanely ask of any sane man or woman, and both have used their talent to help the stars of those they worked with shine more brightly. Can you say they've never been selfish, egotistical, or just plain pigheaded and stubborn when it comes to how they should be booked? Of course not. Their behavior off camera is perhaps more famous than on, to such a wild degree that Flair has been married three times and Michaels had to give up his life to Jesus Christ to get on the right track. No great man is without his flaws though and make no mistake about it - when it comes to wrestling they are GREAT men.
The idea that Ric Flair would have one last, great, unforgettable match on "The Grandest Stage of Them All" has been kicked around many times over the years, but it was only this year that the concept finally came to fruition. To be perfectly honest the set-up and execution could have been a whole hell of a lot better. Vince McMahon ordered on Raw that Flair would be forced into retirement the next time he lost a match. Simple enough, sure, and it gives us even more reason to care about Flair winning his matches than usual. The problem is that no one on WWE's TV programming, including Flair himself, has ever bothered to ask WHY? They may have feuded over a kayfabed version of "controlling" WWE stock at one time, but that was so long ago we'd have to take the F they threw out and get the F back in. It's fair to say only marks like me would even remember that angle, and they haven't made any reference to it anyway. There's really no good reason for McMahon to be made at Flair in 2008, so one simply has to assume McMahon is being evil BECAUSE HE CAN, playing up his role as a prick on TV to the fullest extent.
Unfortunately the booking of his "win or retire" streak has made less sense. At the earliest points in the story he had to face the strongest opponents like Triple H and Umaga, and it was even more insulting considering he wasn't given clean wins over any of these men. It's hard to make people care about a retirement stip when all of your "wins" come by countout or disqualification. Sure you live to fight another day but it makes you look like something of a chump in the process. Then the rules changed for the stip from week to week, such as one-on-one matches counting, but tag team matches not counting towards his retirement. If Mr. McMahon was really being fiendish wouldn't he decree that EVERY match Flair was in, no matter the booking or stipulation, counted towards forcing him to retire? When they finally wised up and gave him some midcarders to go over cleanly it was entirely bass-ackwards - they should have started with job guys, worked up to midcarders and had him face main event players as WrestleMania drew near - putting him in more peril each and every week and building up the suspense.
Thankfully WWE is not nearly as inept as TNA and they found the perfect way to salvage the storyline - let Flair call his own shot. He went out on TV to say that he knew his time was almost up, so if he had to go out he wanted to go out on top by wrestling the best of the best at WrestleMania - HBK, Shawn Michaels, THE SHOWSTOPPER. Michaels tried to politely decline, saying he didn't want to end Naitch's career. Flair was insulted by this as he rightly should be or to paraphrase his words "Who said I was going to LOSE to you Shawn?" Michael agreed, reluctantly at first, but promised to give Flair that one great last match. The heat has been turned up every week since, with Michaels steadily getting more and more disrespectful. First he tried to back out of the match, which Flair was having none of. Then he kept getting involved in Flair's business, basically to protect his own selfish interests and not lose a payday at 'Mania if Flair lost a match. Flair had insisted all along if he couldn't walk that aisle and be the Nature Boy, he might as well retire right now, so he'd be damned if anybody was gonna interfere on his behalf. Michaels refused to listen and the situation finally boiled over, with HBK snapping on Raw this week and goin full bore heel, saying it was time to make like Old Yeller and put the old dog out to pasture. OUCH.
Emotionally there is no bigger match than this one at WrestleMania 24 - a match which for all intents and purposes is likely to be his last (or at least his last in WWE). Now there are undoubtedly some smarks making snide remarks about how two broken down old men are hogging the spotlight - HBK with his bad knees and back, Flair with the visible signs of aging everywhere you look. As I've said many times before though, and feel is now more appropriate than ever, if you don't like this match you are politely invited to kiss my backside. If any two men in WWE today know about giving their best when it matters the most, about making their opponent look good knowing it reflects well on them too, and about stealing a show with an emotional rollercoaster of a match, it's Shawn Michaels and Ric Flair. You can't count on both hands and both feet how many times these men were the highlight of the night on TV or PPV, and how many times they've worked with a wrestler who had no business in the ring and still got something useful out of their match. Thankfully Flair and Michaels have every business in the world being the ring both as technicians and storytellers, and even if Shawn is hurting and Ric has no cardio it won't matter. Even if they resort to gimmicks and there's blood flying everywhere it won't matter. All that matters is that they give us a moment we care about, and even if Flair's career wasn't on the line, that wouldn't be hard to do at all. Whether Shawn stops Flair's show or Flair taps him out to the figure four, it's going to be one hell of a fight.