Bruce Prichard Looks Back On Ric Flair's Retirement Storyline In WWE

As one of Vince McMahon's right-hand men for many years behind the scenes in WWE, Bruce Prichard had a front-row seat for some of the greatest storylines in modern professional wrestling history. On the most recent "Something to Wrestle With," Prichard shared his insight on the retirement storyline involving Ric Flair, including how it was pitched and who else may have stepped into the shoes of Shawn Michaels to finish out Flair's WWE run.

"I know that, by this time, for Ric to come back — it was presented as, 'Hey, we're going to do Ric's retirement,'" Prichard said. "The idea was ... that every match Ric was in could potentially be his last." Prichard stated the initial pitch was that McMahon would continue setting up challenges that Flair would continually overcome until he finally met his match against Shawn Michaels. However, Michaels wasn't the only performer pitched as Flair's last opponent.

"There was thought that it would be Mr. McMahon," Prichard continued. "There was thought it could've been a lot of different people. It could've been Hunter, it could've been Shawn, it could've been Vince. It probably could've ended up being any number of people. I think ending up on Shawn being that guy, [who] was the young version of Ric Flair in so many ways, really worked."

Though Flair's "retirement" storyline is fondly remembered by fans, it would be far from the last time Flair would step in the ring. After finishing up with WWE, Flair would make his way over to TNA, where he wrestled a number of matches in 2010 and 2011. Even that would not be the end, as Flair came out of retirement for one final match in August of this year, teaming up with son-in-law Andrade El Idolo against Jay Lethal and Jeff Jarrett.