7 Ups And 7 Downs From Last Night's WWE Raw (April 18)

6. The Great Equalizer

natalya summer rae
WWE.com

Throughout their illustrious careers, Ric Flair and Bret Hart have crossed paths in the ring only a handful of times on television. Hart spent much of his time in the WWF, while Flair was in NWA/WCW, save for a short stint in WWF, and Hart€™s time in WCW came when Flair was competing sporadically. They€™ve wrestled against each other in a one-on-one match once, at WCW Souled Out 1998, and Hart won that bout.

Still, when Natalya announced that her uncle Bret would be in her corner at Payback to counter Flair€™s interference in the Women€™s Championship match, you couldn€™t help but get a little giddy. Sure, WWE is replicating the setup for the Charlotte/Nattie title match for the NXT Women€™s Championship, but it€™s a little different here, as Flair is a full-blown heel, doing everything he can to save his daughter€™s title €“ even pulling the referee out of the match to cause a DQ.

So it could make for an interesting match with two Hall of Famers on the outside of the ring. While Bret certainly can€™t take a bump, we€™ve seen Nature Boy take a punch or two (from the women), so it€™s possible there could be a little mixing it up between the two legends. Hopefully, they won€™t become the story and detract from what should be a pretty good title match.

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Contributor

Scott is a former journalist and longtime wrestling fan who was smart enough to abandon WCW during the Monday Night Wars the same time as the Radicalz. He fondly remembers watching WrestleMania III, IV, V and VI and Saturday Night's Main Event, came back to wrestling during the Attitude Era, and has been a consumer of sports entertainment since then. He's written for WhatCulture for more than a decade, establishing the Ups and Downs articles for WWE Raw and WWE PPVs/PLEs and composing pieces on a variety of topics.