10 Wrestling Returns We Marked Out For
4. Ric Flair
Many fans consider Ric Flair the greatest wrestler of all time. And while he had quite a bit of success in the WWF in the early ‘90s, he never seemed to quite fit in. After 18 months in the company, Vince McMahon and Flair agreed to go their separate ways. On the third ever episode of Monday Night Raw, The Nature Boy lost a Loser Leaves Town match to Curt Hennig and didn't return for nearly eight years.
He went back to WCW, and in his absence, the WWF became a drastically different place. Shawn Michaels and Bret Hart carried the company for the next few years, and then the Attitude Era blew wrestling back into the mainstream. Flair missed out on all of that, and his time in WCW was, for the most part, a gigantic mess.
But through all of WCW’s terribleness, fans still had great reverence for Flair. They didn’t associate him with the tainted product, and when the company went under, they desperately wanted him to have another run in the WWF. Unfortunately, he missed out on the entire Invasion angle, which could have potentially been saved with his participation. But the night after the angle ended, Raw took place in North Carolina, right in the heart of Flair country, and the crowd's hero was about to come home.
As Vince McMahon was gloating about solely owning the WWF again, Flair’s music played and the arena became unglued. Flair revealed he now owned half the company (which...well, didn't make any sense because Shane and Stephanie owned WCW and ECW, but the moment was so damn cool we just went with it), and the look on Vince’s face upon hearing the news was priceless.
We had assumed that Flair would turn up in the company again in some form, but we got pretty much the best case scenario as he was treated as a huge deal the moment he stepped out onto the stage, just like he rightfully deserved.