6. The Kick That Retired A Legend
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BWfMNZb-O1I Sweet Chin Music has been used from seemingly impossible positions against friend and foe. Yet in the many years of its use, there has only been one time when so many fans did not want to see the kick connect. Of course I refer to Ric Flair's Career Threatening Match at Wrestlemania 24. In 2008 Ric Flair's road to Wrestlemania was tainted with the sanction imposed by Vince McMahon that the next time he lost a match, his wrestling career, "would be over!" It was in this spirit of knowing that his next match could very well be his last, which led Flair to challenge Shawn Michaels to a match at Wrestlemania. After all if he could not compete with the best, then Flair argued it would be the right time to retire, and so persuaded a reluctant Michaels to agree to face him on 'The Grandest Stage of Them All.' The match itself was unique in that apart from the retirement stipulation, it featured two of the greatest wrestlers to ever live competing against each other and, for two entirely different reasons, with themselves. Michaels did not want to retire his idol but equally could not renegade on his promise to give Flair exactly what he wanted 'The Showstopper', and Flair was trying to lengthen his career by at least one more match but was struggling to get the better of a man whose name is synonymous with Wrestlemania. Eventually as the match reached its climax, Michaels would look to hit Flair with a final Sweet Chin Music as fans, and a tearful Flair, realised that the legendary career of 'The Nature Boy' was about to come to an end. It is in this moment, one of the saddest moments in WWE history, that Michaels uttered the words, "I'm sorry. I love you" before hitting Flair with perhaps his most heart breaking of Sweet Chin Music kicks.