The following item is a followup to two previous items regarding The idea Steve Austin pitched to Vince McMahon for Ric Flair's retirement and What went wrong with with the idea Austin pitched.

After Raw head writer Brian Gewirtz failed to put the Ric Flair story line that was pitched by Steve Austin in motion, Vince McMahon assigned the story to the Smackdown writing team. Michael Hayes and others lobbying for Flair to be moved to Smackdown also had a lot to do with it.

Hayes put former WWE creative team member Court Bauer in charge writing the story line. Bauer wrote a long outline for a long-term story that would have involved matches against Finlay and MVP, as well as opponents from Flair’s past such as Mick Foley, Vader, Terry Funk, Ricky Steamboat and even Sting if he were contractually available. The outline included a Four Horsemen reunion at Survivor Series with Flair and his old stable mates taking on a team of his former opponents.

One of the pitched conclusions of the retirement angle called for Flair to enter the Money in the Bank match and win. He would have cashed in later that night and lost in a competitive match to either the WWE or World Hvt. Champion. Flair would have removed his boots and left them in the middle of the ring and the final shot of WrestleMania 24 would have featured a dark arena with a spotlight shining on Flair’s boots and robe.

Unfortunately, Flair went on hiatus and it’s assumed he had no idea that this story line was being pitched. A source says that at least one writer brought up the idea of calling Flair for his input, but there is a policy in WWE creative that prohibits most of the writers from contacting wrestlers directly.

Powell’s POV: As much as I like the idea, I have a hard time believing Vince would have given the green light to WrestleMania concluding with anything Flair related. Although Triple H and Stephanie McMahon-Levesque are big backers of Flair, Vince and Flair have had their share of ups and downs.

Most notably, Vince verbally fired Flair when he stated something to the effect of how he “makes virgins bleed” during a promo, but cooler heads prevailed. Vince projects the image to most in the company that he likes Flair, but he’s clearly not as fond of him as the rest of his family.

Vince has even been known to test Hunter during meetings by saying negative things about Flair just to see if Hunter will defend him. However, observers say Hunter has a great poker face and rarely shows if something gets to him.

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