Why Flair Walked Out

Ric Flair was originally advertised as the special guest referee for tonight's ROH title bout in New York City. With his return to World Wrestling Entertainment, Flair pulled out of his role as ROH Ambassador and shortly after, ROH announced that Flair would instead be an out of the ring enforcer. That change was made at Flair's request.

Tonight, Ric Flair appeared as scheduled for a pre-show autograph session and cut a promo mid-way through the event at the Hammerstein Ballroom. The promo started with Flair putting over the excitement of the ROH title bout and then turned into his usual spiel, flirting with women at ringside and pulling out his catchphrases.

Immediately after the promo, Flair packed his bag, left the Arena and got into a rental car, leaving the event. The departure caught ROH off guard, since as of this afternoon, Flair had no issue with what was scheduled. Several ROH officials, including Adam Pearce, came to the front of the venue trying to catch Flair, but were too late.

According to several different sources, backstage at the event, when Flair was given several spots to do in the match, he responded that he was only there to do his promo and sign autographs and that's what he would be doing. Flair also turned down doing the scheduled appearance because HDNet had cameras on hand to shoot footage (I'm assuming of the title change, although they were also filming the opening bout) and he didn't want to appear on ROH Television.

During the ROH title bout, Austin Aries came out to Flair's music to get heel heat. He then announced that "due to circumstances beyond ROH's control", Ric Flair wouldn't appear as the enforcer. Aries did so in a way to get heat, which led to Nigel McGuinness coming out as the Enforcer. McGuinness ended up doing several spots with Aries, both of which were built around a figure four, so it was apparent those were the spots Flair declined to do during the bout.

ROH has Flair scheduled for three more appearances in the next month.