13 Most Emotional WrestleMania Moments

By Andrew Pollard /

2. The Nature Boy Retires

After an on-screen hiatus for several months, Ric Flair would return to WWE television at the back end of 2007 and vehemently state €œI will never retire.€ How true that proved to be€ Vince McMahon would do his best to prove the Nature Boy wrong by announcing that the next time he lost a match then he€™d be forced to retire. As such, Flair would go on a run of getting wins against the likes of Randy Orton, Umaga, HHH and even Vinny Mac himself. All of this would come to a head when Flair was announced to be facing close friend Shawn Michaels at Wrestlemania 24. The storyline was that even though the two were friends, Shawn€™s Mr. Wrestlemania moniker would get the best of him and he wouldn€™t be able to go easy on the veteran Naitch. Of course, Shawn would stand up the Nature Boy and deliver his patented Sweet Chin Music, uttering the words €œI love you€ as he landed the fateful kick to Flair€™s jaw and got the 1-2-3. The emotion was palpable, with Flair in bits and streaming tears. Granted, Ric Flair is the type of person who would cry at the sight of an untied shoelace. Hell, he€™d likely cry at the sight of a tied shoelace. But still, Michaels was full of emotion, the fans were in tears, and the career of a performer who so many deem as the best of all time was over. This huge event would end up essentially tarnished as Flair would return to in-ring action with TNA down the line, but at the time of Wrestlemania 24 this was a hard-hitting, huge moment in wrestling history.