7 Cruiserweights Who Beat Ric Flair

1. Shawn Michaels

Ric Flair Shawn Michaels WrestleMania 24
WWE.com

Yes, the very man who ended Ric Flair's in-ring career in World Wrestling Entertainment was a man who finds himself in the weight class known as cruiserweight. Along with Bret Hart, Shawn Michaels dragged World Wrestling Entertainment from the land of giants to a more varied world, where those considered smaller could find themselves in main events.

Michaels and Flair met many times in their careers, but it is their final meeting that we all remember. It was WrestleMania XXIV, and for months Ric Flair had been wrestling with his career on the line. If he lost, he was done, full stop. The Nature Boy had overcome all of the obstacles Vince McMahon had put in front of him, so decided to put a pretty big obstacle in front of himself, in the shape of the Heartbreak Kid.

The 20-minute match the two had at Mania wasn't quite as perfect as it felt at the time, but it is still far and away Flair's best in WWE. Billed throughout his career at 225lbs, Michaels won and put the Alimony Pony into retirement, his WWE in-ring career ended by one of the most successful cruiserweights of all time.

Contributor
Contributor

Born in the middle of Wales in the middle of the 1980's, John can't quite remember when he started watching wrestling but he has a terrible feeling that Dino Bravo was involved. Now living in Prague, John spends most of his time trying to work out how Tomohiro Ishii still stands upright. His favourite wrestler of all time is Dean Malenko, but really it is Repo Man. He is the author of 'An Illustrated History of Slavic Misery', the best book about the Slavic people that you haven't yet read. You can get that and others from www.poshlostbooks.com.