The Retirement Angle

In November, Ric Flair finally made his return to WWE after several months of contract negotiations. On November 26, he was giving the fans what seemed to be a retirement speech. With a tear in his eye though, he said that he "will never retire." The fans rejoiced until Mr. McMahon came out and confronted Flair. He told the Nature Boy that he won't retire, as long as he keeps winning. The first match Flair loses form now on will be his last. This angle was actually put on McMahon's desk by Steve Austin. So far, Flair has stood up to the challenge, beating Umaga and Randy Orton, neither via pinfall or submission. Last week on Raw, Ric was put in another match by Vince McMahon against his great friend, Tripe H. They squared off in the ring last night on another edition of Monday Night Raw. The match was very emotional for it was in Greensboro, N.C., the Ric Flair capitol. The fans love Ric in Greensboro. All through the night, Triple H was giving sympathy towards Flair whilst at the same time he said he was going to put it all on the line. Then, the match started. Flair performed better in this match than he has been in recent years. Triple H was also on top of his game. Just as it looked like Flair's career was nearly over, because Triple H was going to pin him, William Regal ran out and thwarted Flair in the head with brass knuckles. Flair's career will go on, but for now, Triple H isn't able of participating in the Royal Rumble (another stipulation of the match.) Earlier in the night Regal had squared off against Vince McMahon's "son" Hornswoggle. Vince had told him to teach Hornswoggle a lesson by roughing him up. However, when the match was under way, Regal couldn't bring himself to hit Vince's "son" (for those who don't know, Hornswoggle is a midget.) Therefore, Vince slapped Regal in the face and told him it was actually a test to see if he had any guts. The possible storyline with him hitting Ric is that Regal is disgruntled at Vince and wanted to ruin his plans of making Ric retire. That seems like the best way to go, although there are several other potential angles. I think the retirement angle is a great one as well as the angle in which Randy Orton attacks Jeff's recovering brother Matt out of spite. WWE is beginning to pick up on good angles and the shows are becoming more entertaining. Thumbs up to WWE creative for turning Raw around.