Conrad Thompson Details How Ric Flair’s Last Match Came Together, Working With WWE, AEW, IMPACT

Ric Flair’s Last Match brought together the top promotions in wrestling as WWE, AEW, NJPW, ROH, IMPACT, MLW, and more promotions were represented at the event. 

The headlining bout featured Ric Flair teaming with AEW talent Andrade El Idolo to take on AEW/ROH talent Jay Lethal and WWE executive Jeff Jarrett. 

Speaking on My World, Conrad Thompson, who promoted the event under the Jim Crockett Promotions banner, explained how everything came together. 

“I want to give a ton of credit and props to kudos to Tony Khan for allowing, really, the Forbidden Door to happen. We’re not supposed to talk about it, but we’re going to say it one time. We had an AEW superstar teaming with a WWE Special Vice President to take on an AEW superstar and Ric Flair. That shouldn’t have happened. There are a lot of reasons that it shouldn’t have happened, but Vince McMahon, back when that was a thing, greenlit it and so did Tony Khan. This could not have happened without both of those folks allowing it. You and I [Jarrett] had this idea, I know there have been lots of rumors and innuendo ‘this wasn’t the first match.’ Listen, there were lots of ideas put together of ‘how can we do Ric Flair’s last match?’ When we settled on a story, it sort of clicked. The videos of Jay Lethal training with Ric had gone super viral, we have a built-in story there and we can build on it, but it doesn’t make sense for Jay to be his partner because they have been working against each other. In an effort to best take care of my father-in-law, let’s make sure the guy he’s wrestling that night is the guy he’s been wrestling four times a week since April,” he said.

Thompson continued, thanking other promotions involved for sending talent. 

“It couldn’t have happened with Tony Khan. It couldn’t have happened without Vince McMahon. Now, let’s give flowers to everyone else. The minute I called Court Bauer and said, ‘I have an idea for Starrcast.’ He cut me off and said, ‘We’re in.’ I said, ‘Oh, okay. Let me at least pitch the idea. We’re going to do matches.’ ‘Okay, we’re in for that too.’ Just immediate. He was such a great citizen in the wrestling space and a great partner and supported it and any of our crazy ideas. ‘Yup, we’re in.’ The exact same conversation with Scott D’Amore. Scott D’Amore and IMPACT Wrestling over-delivered in a way that we can’t properly thank them or communicate well enough here. They ran down the entire match card on their TV program two days before. On their go-home TV, they treated it like it was their go-home TV. It was for our show. They ran Ric Flair Moment of the Week for a whole month building into it. I didn’t ask for it, they just offered and did it because they are fantastic partners. They helped us pull together and use footage of Ric and Jay and everybody. We aired that, no problem, couldn’t be more accommodating. As if that wasn’t enough, they brought their whole freakin production crew, all of them, to help pull the show off. If you were impressed with the way it was put together, it was 85-90 percent IMPACT Wrestling doing what they do. IMPACT Wrestling deserves flowers for days. Dorian (Roldan) sent four of his absolute best, Konnan reccommended it and buddy it delivered in spades. Me and you talked offline, sort of half-ass joking, some of those guys Independent rates probably went through the roof because of the performance they put on that night.’ “ he said.

Thompson also thanked production and backstage crew like Dave Crockett, Keith Mitchell, Chris McDonald, Giancarlo Dittamo, Pondwater Dave, Road Dogg, and more for helping out. 

With so many companies involved, Conrad explained that politics were never an issue and that the talent understood the night was about Ric. 

“There was not a big debate on what we were going to do for finishes. There was no politicking. Everybody was short on time. No one went long. We were supposed to get the main event in the ring around 8:15, it was in at 8. We had an hour for the main event. We hoped for 45 minutes with the post-match, at most. We knew there would be a lot before and after the bell, but we didn’t think we needed an hour. They finished 15 minutes early. I didn’t ask them to do that, but everyone went out of their way to do because they understood, ‘even though this might be one of the biggest crowds I’ve wrestled in front of, a big pay-per-view crowd, it ain’t about me. It’s about Ric.’ A lot of guys, if you watch the tape, they were differential on chops. It would have been real easy to lay in 1000 chops that night, and that wasn’t the case. They wanted to make sure that was special for Ric. No crazy blood. This was bigger than a one-off or spot show. No, I’m not starting a promotion. I’m not saying that,” he said.

Flair did bleed and was victorious in his last bout, pinning Jarrett with the figure four. Fans can find a full recap of the match by clicking here. 

Fans can also read Flair’s comments regarding the bout by clicking here. 

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