At the end of last week, multiple reports indicated that AEW and Ric Flair were no longer doing business with each other.
The Nature Boy basically confirmed it himself during an appearance on Busted Open today (July 15). Flair had lots of positive things to say about AEW, singling out MJF, Will Opsreay, and The Young Bucks for praise. He and Mark Henry were talking about how impressive what Ospreay, Swerve Strickland & Darby Allin can do in the ring when Ric told the story of his last dealings with the company. It came during the planning of Sting’s last match earlier this year:
“I gave them a finish to that match, and they looked at me like I had seven different…. My suggestion to them, and Tony (Khan) — I don’t think he knew that I was on blood thinners. I’ve been doing all that shit for all these years, and I’ve had that blood clot since 2012. So once Tony heard I had a blood clot, if Tony asked me once, he asked me ten times, he said, ‘Do not cut yourself.’”
“So what I wanted to do… I wanted those guys to have the same match, but at the end, instead of leaving my laying there like that, just keep me on the outside the whole time. At the end, as Sting is standing there and those guys are gone, I jump on Sting — boom, boom, boom, he does one big move to me, puts the Scorpion [Death Lock] on me, and we go out the way we started 31 years ago.
“It would have blown the roof off the joint and it would have made me a heel so I had somewhere to go. Because it’s just hard to get the people to get mad at me now… I haven’t heard back from them since [laughs]. ‘Ric that’s a great idea. We’ll call you later on.’”
Henry and another co-host Tommy Dreamer supported the idea, with Mark adding “you won’t” when Flair said he hadn’t heard from AEW.
While the idea would be a great callback to Sting & Flair’s history (and was something just about everyone pitched for The Icon’s final program after Naitch arrived on the scene), AEW did incorporate a fake heel turn for Flair towards the end of the story. And it was also pretty clear that the Stinger and everyone calling the shots around his final match at Revolution wanted to leave time for him to mark the moment with his family, friends & fans at the end of the show; a post-finish angle would have taken up some of that time.
Regardless, if it’s true that AEW hasn’t contacted Flair after their business was concluded — that’s pretty inconsiderate. The Nature Boy isn’t the most reliable narrator either though, so we’ll leave you to make your own judgments here.