Update: Fite TV has officially confirmed the news of the Flair match taking place on July 31.
The Nature Boy will walk the aisle at the Nashville Fairgrounds in July at @RicFlairNatrBoy's Last Match, a Jim Crockett Promotions and @Thuzio event, streaming live only on #FITE.
— FITE (@FiteTV) May 16, 2022
https://t.co/a2uAoKCGrZ pic.twitter.com/N0jGkU2MXW
Ric Flair will lace up his boots and step into the ring one final time this summer. Well, we think. He’s done this several times in his career already.
ESPN’s Marc Raimondi reported on Monday that the 73-year-old wrestling legend will perform one last match at the Nashville Fairgrounds on July 31 and will be broadcasted on Fite TV.. It will be part of the Starrcast V wrestling convention during SummerSlam weekend. It will be his first match since 2011, where he wrestled longtime foe Sting in Impact Wrestling.
Flair, of course, is considered to be on the Mount Rushmore of the most iconic figures in the history of professional wrestling. The career of the “Nature Boy” spans back nearly five decades, where he became a 16-time world champion and two-time WWE Hall of Famer. In recent years, retrospectives about his life have been highlighted in documentary pieces like the ‘Nature Boy’ 30-for-30 produced by ESPN. The low points have also been well documented, like last year when Vice’s ‘Dark Side of the Ring’ series covered Flair’s involvement in the infamous “Plane Ride from Hell” in 2002.
Retiring only to unretire is a common trope in wrestling and the “Dirtiest Player in the Game: has done it multiple times himself. He retired from in-ring action after facing Shawn Michaels at Wrestlemania 24 in 2008 only to appear in the aforementioned Impact Wrestling just over a year later. In recent years, he’s made sporadic appearances in more of a manager role alongside his daughter Charlotte Flair and future son-in-law Andrade El Idolo.
Flair’s opponent has yet to be announced.