Ric Flair, fresh off his appearances for WWE and WrestleMania 25 this past weekend, will be making another appearance for Ring of Honor at the company’s TV tapings for HDNet tonight in Philadelphia, PA at The Arena (former New Alhambra Arena/ECW Arena). ROH made this announcement the day after WrestleMania (which wasn’t a coincidence) and had been pushing to get Flair for the TV tapings.
It was pretty clear that WWE did not want Flair appearing on the show and offered him a role as the General Manager of Smackdown to bring him back full-time as a regular. Flair ended up turning down the offer as he felt the money they were offering (an estimated $250,000 per year) was far less than what he is making right now doing appearances. Another issue was that had Flair taken the offer they would be the ones back in control and could force him to turn down other money making opportunities, which was the reason he asked out of his contract with the company last year.
Probably the biggest thing WWE did not want to happen was for Flair to show up on TNA TV and when ROH got TV that was the next fear. The mentality in WWE has been described as that by putting people on their TV they make them stars. Many have agreed that is the case and if questioned most believe Flair would admit that most of the big moeny gigs he is getting now is because of the angle with WWE last year leading into his retirement. The word is that Flair is receiving $15,000 for the first TV appearance for ROH tonight and they are said to be interested in having him do more shows in the future, but are obviously hoping for a lower asking price. Flair reportedly also is working for ROH to help get his son Reid Flair a regular gig with the company and to get him experience working with better talent.