At WrestleMania 24 in 2008, Ric Flair and Shawn Michaels—both members of the WWE Hall of Fame—fought it out with Flair’s career on the line. The Nature Boy was supposed to wrestle in this match only once, but he has since competed in other matches. The match featured the famous exchange in which Michaels mouthed “I love you” to Flair before defeating him.
Because of the nature of pro wrestling fans and how they typically respond to such things, Michaels recently admitted during an interview with Sam Roberts on the Notsam Wrestling Show that he was uncertain about the line.
Michaels discussed the match’s various events and how crucial they were to the competitors. He also described how he came up with them.
“I’ve mentioned it before, that particular match was something that came to me in the middle of the night,” Michaels said. “I woke up out of a sleep, I think at like at two o’clock in the morning, got up out of bed and then just, you know, went to the table and started writing and then I’m coming down to the end of it and that’s the thoughts that were in my head. And of your course, a little tear drop comes down and I was like, oh my goodness, I mean, is this too, oh my goodness, Namby/Pamby? I mean, the wrestling audience can be tough and I just thought, oh, I don’t know. Because it was so emotional for me against, because I knew where Ric was at that time, and I knew how important it was to him and it was genuinely important to me because it was important to him.”
“I wanted this to be really unbelievably special for him. This is my chance for him to, I don’t know say like, you know, of all the great matches he’s had, the best one was with Shawn Michaels at whatever age he was at that time, 56 or something. So there were a number of reasons I wanted it to go well, but then you’re looking at this ending, it sounds like a love story that may not really go over well, you know with a tough crowd. But I kept it. And, look, I presented that to Michael Hayes and Ric, you know, when we got there to WrestleMania and Ric patted me on the leg and goes, thank you. And I was still waiting like, does that thank you, like, it’s good or no? It’s still a bit worrisome again.”
Michaels continued by acknowledging that had the fight taken place in the era of social media, he might have chosen a different conclusion.
“I’ll say this, I don’t know because I was talking about it earlier, had social media and everything been out there the way that it is now, and you see all of those things, I’m not sure I’d have the guts to do that finish with Ric for fear that they would, you know, kick it back at us,” Michaels said. “I don’t mean to ever imply that, you know, our fans are mean, I would have been worried about it because like on social media, they probably won’t show you the 15-year-old wrestling fan in them, they’re a bit guarded. When you’re there in the moment and you’re there at WrestleMania, and you allow us to take you there, they were fine. I mean, grown men are fine, whimpering like, oh my goodness, that was beautiful, man. But I just don’t know that I’d have the guts to do it, had I’ve seen maybe what possibly could have been the other side, but that was my concern.”
The full interview with Michaels can be seen below:
(H/T to Joshie Lopez and WrestlingHeadlines.com for the transcription)
