13 Most Emotional WrestleMania Moments

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.
Senior Writer
Senior Writer

Once described as the Swiss Army Knife of WhatCulture, Andrew can usually be found writing, editing, or presenting on a wide range of topics. As a lifelong wrestling fan, horror obsessive, and comic book nerd, he's been covering those topics professionally as far back as 2010. In addition to his current WhatCulture role of Senior Content Producer, Andrew previously spent nearly a decade as Online Editor and Lead Writer for the world's longest-running genre publication, Starburst Magazine, and his work has also been featured on BBC, TechRadar, Tom's Guide, WhatToWatch, Sportkskeeda, and various other outlets, in addition to being a Rotten Tomatoes-approved film critic. Between his main dayjob, his role as the lead panel host of Wales Comic Con, and his gig as a pre-match host for Wrexham AFC games, Andrew has also carried out a hugely varied amount of interviews, from the likes of Robert Englund, Kane Hodder, Adrienne Barbeau, Rob Zombie, Katharine Isabelle, Leigh Whannell, Bruce Campbell, and Tony Todd, to Kevin Smith, Ron Perlman, Elijah Wood, Giancarlo Esposito, Simon Pegg, Charlie Cox, the Russo Brothers, and Brian Blessed, to Kevin Conroy, Paul Dini, Tara Strong, Will Friedle, Burt Ward, Andrea Romano, Frank Miller, and Rob Liefeld, to Bret Hart, Sting, Mick Foley, Ricky Starks, Jamie Hayer, Britt Baker, Eric Bischoff, and William Regal, to Mickey Thomas, Joey Jones, Phil Parkinson, Brian Flynn, Denis Smith, Gary Bennett, Karl Connolly, and Bryan Robson - and that's just the tip of an ever-expanding iceberg.