Ric Flair's LAST last match

Boardwalk Beach Resort; Panama City Beach, Florida. The venue of the final WCW show, which Ric Flair headlined with Sting way back on March 26, 2001. That seems like a lifetime ago now.

The event is held outside in the hot, humid Floridian night. There’s no coverage, not over the crowd nor ring, and it is storming. Steady wind. Light, but persistent rain, which is worsening by the minute. Nevertheless, the event continues.

The camera pushes in on Ric, standing proudly backstage. He can hear the dull roar of the crowd. He flashes a Cheshire Cat smile. Coming into frame - with one of those super long, thin microphones like Gene Rayburn’s when he hosted Match Game in the 1970s - is Ric’s long-time detractor - Dutch Mantell. He congratulates Ric on his forthcoming LAST, last match, and asks if he’s been drinking. Somewhat in jest, but mostly in sincerity. This is where we get … the first ad of the night.

“Yes, I have been indulging,” slurs Flair, “with the fine taste of Coors Light. Great taste. Less filling. Fair price.” Muffled “clapter” emanates from the crowd. Dutch, wearily, points out that this is now Ric’s third ‘final’ match. “What in-ring lessons have you learned since your epic showdown with Shawn Michaels at Wrestlemania 24? One of the greatest matches ever, also held here in the great state of Florida.”

Ric takes a deep breath, tears welling in his eyes. The weight of the moment, and the crushing responsibility of his advertising duties, have crashed down upon him, like the breakers from tonight’s tempest.

“Coors Light: Taste the Rockies, no matter where you are.” In the last few moments alone, his speech has gotten slightly, yet noticeably worse. He sounds like what happens when Ric Flair and a broken vacuum cleaner are merged in that machine from The Fly, and the abomination that crawls out of the pod has just received extensive dental work with high-dose local anesthetics.

Dutch shakes his head. “Good luck, buddy.” “Don’t call me that,” Flair bites back. He leaves frame, his iconic music hits, and the proceedings begin.

-

The sounds of “Thus Spoke Zarathustra” by Richard Strauss cut through the steady rainfall. We hear our commentary team for the first time: the dulcet tones of Tony Schiavone and Good Ol’ JR. Schiavone is in high spirits. “Great to be here with you, JR! Hey, wasn’t this song in that one Stanley Kubrick movie? I just got a subscription to Paramount Plus, and I've been digging back into the classics.” JR, his ailing health apparent by the first word he utters, turns to Tony, “I have no idea what you’re talking about.” Schiavone should’ve known that JR wasn’t a cinephile. Classic Tony.

Rick, draped in a gaudy purple robe, has not even made it halfway down the ramp, milking every second. This is, of course, his last match. “WOO!” cries Flair with his crooked, oddly white smile. He coughs a little while holding the “ooo.” The crowd “WOOs!” in return. They are excited to be here, even in the rain.

To his left, Ric’s son-in-law and tag team partner in the second of his Final Career matches, Andrade. To his right, his daughter, Charlotte Flair. She is, simply, too good for all of this horseshit. Ric hands Andrade his robe – Revealing… the second ad of the night. 

“BetterHelp,” his shirt says. Ric turns around, arms outstretched like Christ himself, drinking in this moment as if it were a Coors Light. “It’s not just a Flair for the dramatic; at BetterHelp, mental health matters.” Flair ascends the steel steps. Both feet hit each step. He takes his first deep, open-mouthed breath of the night.

Standing across from Flair is none other than Mark Calaway - The Undertaker. Usually, Taker would take somewhere between 4-7 minutes to make his walk to the ring. But they only booked the venue for 5 hours. Every precious second matters in this shameless money-grab. 

Michael Buffer addresses the crowd, shielding his microphone from the drizzling rain. His golden voice, now bronzed by the years, and his face, vibrant yet petrified like an epoxied tabletop, introduce the warriors of tonight’s main event. Buffer has aged gracefully, but he has aged. His cadence remains clear. His diction, near perfect. 

Taker has aged considerably since his retirement match in 2020. He could easily just relax, smoke cigars, and endlessly podcast like one of the grifter product whores in the Rogansphere. But he wants to go out with one last match in front of an adoring crowd. The lack of closure from his audience-less final match has left him wanting one more dance in the squared circle. In this moment, he understands why this is Ric’s third, and final, final match.

The glow of the TitanTron, or whatever they call it here in Panama City, gets an assist from a mighty strike of lightning. For a split second, the camera catches the now-illuminated rows beyond the floor. JR never mentioned this, nor did Mr. Buffer, but tonight’s proceedings are not sold out.

Taker’s eye makeup is running from the steady rain. He surveys the unoccupied seats. What else did he expect? He knows he shouldn’t be here. In this moment, he wishes this was not HIS last match. Instead of indulging Ric Flair’s vanity, he should just be peddling HIMS boner pills on his podcast. Which brings us to … the third advertisement of the night. 

“Tonight’s main event,” Buffer coos, “is a No Disqualification Match! Sponsored by… HIMS!” Ric’s voice, though far away from the mic, is picked up on the system. “Don’t need ‘em. WOO!” HIMS will not be happy with that remark.

“sp... sponsored by HIMS,” Buffer continues, “Don’t stop until your partner is pinned, taps out, or collapses from exhaustion.”

Flair wrangles the mic from Buffer and launches into his age-old “limousine ridin’” bit. But he forgets the order, there’s simply too many rhymes and couplets to remember at his deteriorating mental acuity, never mind his drinking. He repeats and omits lines. He eventually breaks the sisyphean cycle and just lets out a half-hearted WOO! The crowd mimics him, with less fervor than before. 

—

Flair shakes out his arms and slaps his chest. He steels his body for combat. Flair is the expert in final career matches, so this warmup must be good. This isn’t his first rodeo. It isn’t even his second.

The bell rings, and JR says, “and here we go - tonight’s main event! Now this is an AEW Wednesday Night Smackdown we’ll never forget.” The poor old Oklahoman. This is not AEW, nor is this WWE, nor is it Wednesday. It’s a Saturday night in Panama City, and Ric Flair has just gestured ringside to, who else, but Stone Cold Steve Austin, who tosses Ric a Coors Light. Steve gives a Fonzie look to the camera, (“what is this shit? I’d rather be fucking around with my cats back at the ranch.”) and forcefully cracks for himself a Broken Skull IPA. He takes a sip, so as not to waste the golden nectar that lies within the aluminum. He covers the mouth hole with his thumb. The rain will dilute and ruin his beer.

“WOORS LIGHT!” Flair screams as he dumps most of the beer on BetterHelp’s silkscreened logo. “WOO WOO WOO!” The crowd is half-throat from not even 5 minutes ago. Flair has lost his touch. Or has he?

He locks up a collar and elbow. Whips Taker into the rope. Shoulder tackle. He does his age-old finger gun, peacocking strut. WOO!, and the crowd mimics him louder than ever tonight. Taker is struggling to get back to his feet. Not because he’s hurt. He’s just old as fucking shit.

JR is slurring worse than Flair. It sounds like JR said something along the lines of, “This is a vintage Flair performance. Those chops are vicious” That’s a lot of S sounds. Hard to say. Taker hits a flurry of punches. Ric, not out of disrespect but out of elderly drunken incompetence, no-sells.

Taker backs up and stretches his arms. The patented Flair retirement warmup. Flair motions once again to Austin. Steve is on his phone. Flair calls for Austin again. The crowd is now entirely seated. Once numb to the rain from the excitement and pageantry, the crowd now begins to rustle with their commemorative ponchos. “Austin,” he slurs, “a WOORS!”

He slings a beer over the top rope, nearly out of Flair’s reach. Flair stumbles. He falls. The beer skitters like a twirling die on a Craps table. It falls off the apron. A hard, cruel 7 of a throw. Flair seems legitimately hurt. Or is he selling? Hard to say. 

Regardless, he rolls out of the ring. Grasping at his left knee. Charlotte goes to pick up the Coors. Ric yells, “I can fuckin do it myself; i’m the Naaaature boyyy!.” Yikes. Ric’s temper is escalating, his mood souring by the second. He bends over for the Coors, “My Woor’s…” he says quietly to himself. Maybe the first row heard him. Maybe not even them. Maybe this is just for Andrade and Charlotte, or perhaps even Ric himself. Something is off.

Lord knows what time Ric started drinking today. It’s after 10:30 pm local, and it’s a big, celebratory event. He’s probably 15 Coors deep. It’d be a shock if he didn’t dip into the Gin hours ago.

Undertaker finds his way to Ric, and asks if he’s selling. “Trash can lid. Hit me.” Taker’s joints barely hold together as he reaches under the ring for the foreign object. Taker takes a swing, Ric slowly falls to the thick padding. He fiddles around in his boots. He’s blading not even 5 minutes in. What a showman.

A fan in the front row wearing a Sting mask takes a swing at Taker. Taker goes down in a heap. The fan takes off the mask and… it’s.. STIIIIIING! He isn’t wearing his customary facepaint. For the first time, the reveal is legitimate. 

The crowd erupts into easily the loudest pop of the night as Taker ambles back to his feet and stares down the Icon. A moment nearly 30 years in the making. HOLY SHIT! HOLY SHIT! The crowd is going absolutely bananas.

Ric appears from seemingly out of nowhere. He is panting like a St. Bernard in the Sahara. He bladed hard, and he is hemorrhaging blood. Mixed with the rain, this is objectively an incredible visual. But Flair’s temper erupts again. This is HIS last match.

“Sit the fuck down, Borden,” Ric says. “I can do it myself.” Yikes. Sting hesitates, but takes a seat. So, too, does the once energized crowd. Unwilling to be upstaged, Ric takes a mighty swing at Taker, but collapses. The crowd jumps back to their feet before their asses can fully splat back on the wet, cheap folding chairs.

Like the audience of an air show or a NASCAR race, deep down, this is what most of the crowd came for. Ric clutches his chest, much like his most recent Last Match. The Undertaker, Andrade, Charlotte, the crowd – everyone is unwilling to fully let themselves believe it’s a heart attack, but it probably is. The Boy Who Cried WOO. 

Taker gingerly helps Flair to his feet. And rolls him into the ring. Rain is pouring harder now, and the crowd is anxious for this ill-fated charade to end. 

“Tombstone,” Ric slurs. “But first … one more Woors.” Austin rolls a can into the ring, and it comes to rest near Flair’s hand. He doesn’t move other than a slow twitch towards the can. He cracks it, and dumps it onto the side of his head. Less than 10% goes in his mouth. 

Taker drags Ric to his feet. And gets him ready for the Tombstone. Ric closes his eyes. Probably because there’s a fucking shit load of blood and rain in them, but then he smiles. He thinks he delivered. “Ole Naytch still got it,” he mumbles to Taker.

Taker gets Flair into position, but the rain has compromised his grip. Taker feels Ric slipping from his grasp. The crowd gasps, as Ric’s posse jump into the ring. A massive crash of lightning, followed by a siren. Ric begins his descent to the canvas.

Ric, frozen in this moment, snickers to himself. “Boy, my family BetterHelp me or I’m a goner.” He appreciates the irony of the moment as Taker fully loses his grip. Ric’s head crashes to… the outstretched hand of Andrade, tucking Flair’s chin. “I’ve got you, Sir,” he says.

Buffer takes the mic, “Ladies and gentlemen, local officials are forcing us to stop the event immediately given the inclement weather. Please seek shelter immediately. 

As the driving rain skitters across the ring, the TitanTron, or whatever Floridians call it, goes dark.

Ric asks Andrade to fetch a mic, and to hold it down to the mat, where Ric has yet to move. “Thank you for coming out. Thank you for everything. From the bottom of my heart, I love you. Woo.” Nearly everyone is already gone. The mic has been shut off for a while. No one, save those around him, heard his closing remarks.

Suddenly, a change of heart, as Ric laughs to himself. “Say… we should give ‘em what they want,” Ric says. “Stinger. Taker. Naaaature Boy! One last ride!” 

“Sure Ric,” someone responds. “We’re in. One last match.” He smiles.

The lights go out.