Eric Bischoff speaks Ric Flairs Motivation On Leaving the WWE!

by Al M. on 5th August 2008

Blogging is new to me, but the 21st century beckons and I enjoy the ability to share my thoughts
and opinions with my fans. You can post your own comment or question in response to my posts,
and I’ll answer it if I can. I’ll do the best I can to post a new entry each week – so come back
often to read up!

BLOG 8/4/2008
“When To Say When” (1 Comments – Read Comments)
NFL training camps are opening up around the country and the sports world is
electric with speculation as to where/if Brett Favre should return for another year of
pro-football.

I’ll go on the record from the get-go and say “hell yeah”!

I am not a Green Bay Packer fan, but watching Brett Favre’s brand of football is an
amazing thing to experience. His passion, energy, raw talent and precision make Brett
one of the most exciting athletes to ever play the game in my opinion. The fact that he
is doing it at such a high level as he is closing in on his 40th birthday makes it even more
amazing.

But as much as I enjoy watching Brett play, I have to say that I am disappointed that he
fumbled his retirement on the one yard line.

Brett Favre’s retirement last March was one of those rare occasions in sports when a truly
legendary athlete went out with dignity, grace, and having had raised the bar of excellence
and professionalism in his sport so high, that future superstars will have difficulty seeing the
bar, let alone clearing it. It was one of those moments that even if one wasn’t a fan of Brett
Favre (or even a football fan in general), you knew you were witness to something special.

But then something very familiar happed. My guess is that Brett’s ego checked in.

By this I mean that I think Brett Favre woke up one day following his retirement and began
to wonder what lies ahead. Can you imagine what it must be like for someone who has lived
the vast majority of their life preparing for or recovering from the next/last football season?
When one spends the amount of time necessary to be the best of the best for three plus
decades, and all of a sudden your calendar is clear of anything related to preparing to step
on to a football field? It’s not hard to imagine why ones “sense of self”, or ego, senses
danger and begins to react.

I think it’s a pretty safe bet that Brett’s motivations had nothing to do with money. In my
opinion it was about being a competitor, Brett believing that he has one more Super Bowl
ring left in him.

And yes, ego.

But I cant help to wonder about Ric Flair’s motivation to leave WWE. In some ways,
Ric Flair is in a simalar position to Brett Favre. In May I wrote in my blog “Finally” about
how happy I was for Ric, that he could retire on a grand stage like Wrestlemania with
the love, support, and respect from the people around him. To have the opportunity to
retire in a way that put a proud period at the end of the last sentence of a great book
that was Ric’s career is rare and should be appreciated.

If Ric asked for his release from WWE in order to pursue a career as a public/corporate
speaker, I wish him the best. Ric is great in front of a crowd, and if charm and charisma
were publicly traded commodities on the New York Stock Exchange, Ric would be a
walking Fortune 500 company.

But if Ric is being driven by his “sense of self”, and is contemplating a return to the ring as
a result, I fear,that the special moment that was Ric’s retirement and in many repects his
legacy, will be diluted forever in the process.

Related Posts

Comments are closed.