Ric Flair On Jerry Lawler Being Taken Off SmackDown, TNA, Regretting Wrestling Again After WM 24
On episode 4 of The Ric Flair Show, two-time WWE Hall Of Famer, Ric Flair welcomed to the show the man who he believes is the best professional wrestler of all time, Shawn Michaels. During the podcast, Flair talked about Jerry Lawler being relieved of his WWE SmackDown commentary duties. Michaels talked about the retirement match he had with Flair at WrestleMania 24. Also, Michaels discussed the legendary matching Rolex watches he had custom made to commemorate the occasion. Finally, Flair said that he regrets having wrestled again after the retirement match.
On the subject of Lawler's SmackDown spot going to JBL, Flair stated that Lawler has had a great run and that he relates to how disappointed Lawler must feel, as Flair was taken off of the road by WWE when Charlotte fired her father as her manager on WWE Monday Night RAW.
"Jerry [has] had a phenomenal run. He's phenomenal at what he does, but it's kind of like I wish I could be there everyday. Our time comes. The time I had, I was so lucky. Actually, I liked it when I got a break, but now I wish I was back. It's hard to walk away. I'm sure he's struggling with it. Jerry [has] had a phenomenal run. He [has] done well financially and he'll always be regarded as one of the top four or five guys in the history of commentary. Actually, [JBL] was so good. Michael Cole was good. The guy from MMA [Mauro Ranallo] I thought was outstanding. Yeah, he was great and [JBL] and him are on fire together, so it's great."
As for the retirement match from WrestleMania 24, Michaels took the lead in putting the match together because he had a clear vision of how he wanted it to play out and had never been more confident about anything in his life.
"I knew exactly [how to put the match together]. I've never been so sure about anything in my life. I knew if we do this, this is going to be epic."
Michaels claimed that he got matching Rolex watches made because he wanted to do something special for the match. Michaels said he wanted to be like Flair if it was only for the day.
"I knew, probably, I guess, at least a month in advance that we were going to have this match and it was important to me. Look, I've taken all of my WrestleMania matches seriously. I'm guilty of taking the majority of my wrestling matches too serious. I take my RAW matches to serious. Then, I take my pay-per-view matches even more serious. Then, my WrestleMania matches way, way, way, way, probably unhealthily too serious. And then, of course, I took this one with Ric. It was important to me, and so I wanted to know how this could be special. And then, of course, it went back to me being 15 [years old] and I thought, 'you know what? What I'd like to do is [for] us to have matching Rolexes. I wanted to be the limousine riding, Rolex wearing, wheeling-dealing, kiss stealing, son of a gun just one time with him'. And I wanted to get them done a certain way and something that will be memorable that we'd remember forever and engrave something on them and so when I went to these jewellers that I know pretty well and asked them if they could [do it. I said] 'this is what I'm thinking about doing. Can you get this done?' The only thing they couldn't get done [was the roman numeral for '24'], that's why we have the 24 on there. I was going to do it in roman numerals. There just isn't enough room."
Apparently, Flair regrets returning to the squared circle after he lost the retirement match to Michaels.
"Yes, I do [regret wrestling again after WrestleMania 24]. There [are] a couple of things I regret. Number one was ever going to work for TNA. That's my own fault. It was just a lot of money to wrestle 65 days a year, right? 65 days and make a lot of money. Do you know what I mean? Not WWE money, but pretty good money to do nothing. And I made a lot of friends. I like Kurt Angle very much and I like [James] Storm and [Bobby] Roode. I liked AJ [Styles]." Flair added, "everybody treated me great. I mean, I don't have any bad things to say about TNA or the people there at all. After being in the WWE, it's pretty hard to work any place else because you're always comparing them no matter how hard you try not to."
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Source: The Ric Flair Show