Flair endured not feeling great but had to fight just to get through the match, mentally more than anything. Looking back, he laments it not coming across better than it did.

“I just felt bad because the guys panicked, worried about my health,” said the 16-time World Champion of his fellow participants in the match. “If it had come off the way we had practiced forever, it would have been a masterpiece.”

Asked if that was really his last match, “The Nature Boy” was quick to say, “Oh God, I want to wrestle again right now.” But instead of any grand plans for another final outing, he compares himself to another elder wrestler and notes one way his current last match could have been better.

“I feel great. Isn’t that crazy?” Flair pondered. “I feel like Ricky Morton — the guy I should have chosen for my last match, it would have been great — Ricky Morton is still wrestling.”

Whether it was his true last match or not, Flair sees the experience as a major positive, if only for the fitness routine it led him to, though that didn’t take away from too much of the party.

“[Trainers] gave me a goal and I just attacked it,” he said. “I didn’t stop drinking or anything, but I was literally training three hours a day, five days a week, in the ring or I was doing the sled, the rope … I got my bench press up to two and a quarter. I mean, so from being dead to all that was pretty cool.”

If you use any quotes from this article, please credit “Insight with Chris Van Vliet” with a h/t to Wrestling Inc. for the transcription.