411’s Countdown to WrestleMania XXVII: An Hour of Last Things

“Look, I know how tough it is for you to say goodbye, so I’ll say it. Maybe you’re right. Maybe we will see each other again. But just in case we don’t, I want you to know how much you meant to me.” – Capt. Hawkeye Pierce

I remember being eleven years old and sitting in the waiting room of the ICU. I’d spent a lot of time in that waiting room in the week since my father’s accident. I can distinctly remember my mother coming in to the waiting room, looking at my family, and looking at me. “Scott’s going to say goodbye to his father now.” That’s the last part that I remember clearly. As strange as it sounds, I don’t actually remember seeing my father that one last time. I don’t remember what I said or even if I cried. I don’t remember the actual goodbye, but twenty years later I’ve come to understand that the goodbye wasn’t really the point. Those last few moments with my father weren’t really about saying goodbye. They were about feeling I had said all there was to say. They were about finding a gift called closure.

The very notion of closure is one of the great elusive mysteries of life. Sometimes we consciously search for closure. Sometimes we’re driven by a subconscious, almost primal need for closure. We can search for it for years, and even after finding it we can spend a lifetime analyzing it. Of course, there is no roadmap to closure. Your closure is different than mine, and the path that once brought you closure may never lead you there again. Closure isn’t a quantifiable goal or a measurable achievement. It’s a feeling, a realization, an epiphany, and a moment of peace. There is no formula for closure, but that hasn’t stopped us from institutionalizing the search for closure into the benchmarks of our life. Graduations are designed for us to find closure not just on our education but also on our youth. Funerals aren’t really for the dead but rather for the living, for giving those of us left behind a chance to reflect and mourn and maybe find some closure. That search for closure is the reason we eagerly await and then hotly debate the series finales of our favorite television shows. Our need for closure is the reason that 106 million of us watch the final episode of M*A*S*H, and our need for closure is the reason that we’re still scrutinizing the final episode of Lost. We chase closure, because we know the cost of failing to catch it. A lack of closure is the reason you still think of her when the right song plays. And there’s a closure-shaped hole that means you’ll always wonder what might have been.

We look for closure in so many aspects of our lives, but it’s not something we often discuss in the context of professional wrestling. We’ve come to think of wrestling as a form of entertainment, a venue for intense action and ruthless aggression, and an arena for heroes and villains to fight the kind of epic battles that are as old as time. Wrestling can provide us with thrills and excitement, with drama and comedy, with happiness and sadness, with overwhelming exultation and bitter disappointment. But we seem to never even consider the possibility of closure in professional wrestling, because we’ve been conditioned time and time again to believe that closure simply isn’t possible in this industry. Feuds and storylines stop and start with increasing frequency, many lasting only a month or two before quietly fading away. Promising young stars begin to get pushed and then fall back down the card with little explanation. Talent jump from promotion to promotion and often have to abandon months or even years of history and storylines in the process. But of all the ways we are denied closure in professional wrestling, there is one that trumps all others. It is a single word that has lost almost all meaning other than as a cynical punch line. Retirement.

“I just want to say to you all tonight I’m very grateful to be here. A lot of people told me that I’d never wrestle again and that’s all I do. You know, if you live hard and play hard and you burn the candle at both ends, you pay the price for it. You know in this life you can lose everything you love, everything that loves you. Now I don’t hear as good as I used to and I forget stuff and I ain’t as pretty as I used to be but god damn it I’m still standing here and I’m The Ram. As times goes by, as times goes by, they say ‘he’s washed up’, ‘he’s finished’, ‘he’s a loser’, ‘he’s all through.’ You know what? The only one that’s going to tell me when I’m through doing my thing is you people here.” – Randy “The Ram” Robinson

Retirement. At this point it’s hard to even say it with a straight face. The concept of retirement in professional wrestling has become a clichéd joke, and the fact that a wrestler will eventually come out of retirement is all but taken for granted. I could write an entire column about the myth of retirement in professional wrestling, and honestly I can’t remember if I already have. But the important point to make at the moment is that our collective skepticism about the finality of retirement makes closure extremely elusive for fans of professional wrestling. Retirement matches should be tailor made for both wrestlers and fans to find closure. Retiring wrestlers can finally settle the score with longtime adversaries. They can turn back the clock one last time. They can pull out a finisher they haven’t used in a decade and finally find a counter to a counter to a counter. They can say thank you and goodbye, and their fans can say the same. The fans can enjoy one last moment with their childhood heroes. They can pause to reflect on all the moments that they’ve shared with these warriors over the years. And they can always cherish the memories of the nights that their favorite wrestlers closed the book on the their legendary careers. A retirement match could be all of those things. It should be all of those things. But we all know that it’s not.

Our inability to find closure when a professional wrestler retires is a result of years of conditioning that have taught us to view retirement as simply another milestone in a wrester’s career rather than as the end of a wrester’s career. There have been countless kayfabe suspensions, firings, banishments, and retirements throughout the history of the industry. The saga of a wrestler losing their career can undoubtedly be a compelling storyline, and so it’s understandable that such stories would be used time and time again. I can personally attest to the power of these types of storylines; Shawn Michaels’ 1995 post-concussion syndrome storyline was the first angle that really captured my imagination and made me a fan of professional wrestling. However, the important caveat to virtually every suspension, firing, banishment, and retirement storyline is that the only way for it to pay off is for the wrestler is question to eventually return to seek vengeance, revenge, reinstatement, or retribution. In one sense, kayfabe retirement angles have to end with the wrestler coming out of retirement, because otherwise the retirement would be reality rather than kayfabe. As fans of professional wrestling, we have become so accustomed to the transient nature of kayfabe retirement that we know the punch line before the joke has even been told. I’m not saying that there’s anything inherently wrong with kayfabe retirement angles. There are ultimately only so many truly unique archetypes for kayfabe storylines, so it’s difficult to fault promotions for continuing to return to a formula that works. The problem is that our cavalier attitude toward kayfabe retirement has inadvertently made us relentlessly skeptical of any attempt at the real thing.

The inability of so many professional wrestlers to actually retire and make a clean break from the industry has always been a fascinating subject. Maybe it’s because this is the only life they’ve ever known, or maybe it’s because they don’t know how to do anything else. Maybe it’s because there is no rush like the roar of the crowd, or maybe it’s because life really is just a little bit darker when you’re not under those bright lights. Maybe it’s simply because the only way to live your life as a professional wrestler is to love your life as a professional wrestler, and maybe there’s no way to ever really walk away from the life you love. But whatever the reason, we all know that walking away from the ring is the single most difficult thing that a professional wrestler can ever do. Mickey Rourke’s portrayal of Randy “The Ram” Robinson in The Wrestler was so compelling that moviegoers who had never seen a wrestling match suddenly understood that every wrestler feels the pull of one more match. And those of us who are longtime wrestling fans now dismiss the notion of retirement as a nothing more than a halfhearted bluff.

Of course, the great irony of the myth of retirement in professional wrestling is that the fans often seem unsatisfied with both the wrestlers who retire and the wrestlers who refuse to retire. Every wrester who hangs up the boots will be met with chants of “One More Match!” for years to come. We want to believe that our favorite stars still have something left in the tank. We doggedly cling to the hope that yesterday’s greatness is not lost forever. We were inspired when Ricky “The Dragon” Steamboat proved that he still had it when he returned to the ring at WrestleMania XXV and then topped his performance with one more match at Backlash 2009. But Ricky Steamboat was an exceptional talent throughout his entire career, and in this case he is most certainly the exception to the rule. In most cases, aging professional wrestlers are never able to recapture their former glory when they return to the ring. Age, injuries, and time away from the ring are often simply too great an obstacle to overcome. And for those wrestlers who refuse to retire and continue to step into the ring night after night and year after year, we are forced to watch their former glory fade by almost imperceptible degrees until we’re left with a only a shadow of the past. We call for yesterday’s stars to simply walk away rather than continue to tarnish their legacies. We bitch and moan about top tier talent who refuse to step aside and let tomorrow’s stars shine. And so it seems as though professional wrestlers can’t win. We beg those of them who walk away from the ring to return, and we try to chase away those who stay too long. We refuse to say goodbye unless the chance to say goodbye is never offered. And so in both cases we deny ourselves any chance at closure.

Three is no way to write a column about retirement and closure in professional wrestling without discussing Ric Flair’s retirement match against Shawn Michaels at WrestleMania XXIV. Ric Flair is arguably the greatest professional wrestler in history. He’s near the top of my personal list, but I certainly understand the validity of many of the arguments for putting Flair in the top slot. We didn’t know for sure that Flair would lose to Michaels and be forced to retire, but most of us assumed that the entire angle had been constructed to allow Flair the chance to shine one last time. We all fondly recalled Flair’s career when he was inducted into the WWE Hall of Fame. Flair and Michaels told an incredible story in the ring the following night, and none of us where shocked when Michaels reluctantly ended Flair’s legendary career. We reconvened the next night on Raw as past and present stars paid homage and said goodbye to a man that so many of us loved. And it seemed as though we all should have found closure. But I always found it fascinating that the soundtrack to Flair’s retirement was “Leave the Memories Alone” by Fuel. Flair’s Hall of Fame induction, his match against Michaels, and his retirement ceremony on Raw were a celebration of our memories of Flair’s career. Those three nights were designed to cement Flair’s legacy in our minds. And so what did “Leave the Memories Alone” really mean? Why were the memories in danger? It’s almost as though we all doubted that this was really the end of Ric Flair’s career. It’s almost as though WWE thought they could will Flair into retirement by giving him the grandest farewell in wrestling history. It’s almost as though we were all trying to put on a good show and make ourselves believe what we knew might be a lie. Maybe it was that doubt that kept us from finding closure three years ago, and maybe it was that doubt that made it easier for Ric Flair to step back in the ring for TNA. And so maybe our inability to allow ourselves to find closure is the real reason that closure seems so elusive.

“Together we have shared this hour of last things. Nothing is more important when saying goodbye to someone you love than feeling you have said all there is to say. It is a gift called closure and allows those who live on beyond you to face the world without rage, anger, or sorrow. Only the pride of having known you.” – Jeph Loeb

As we once again head down the Road to WrestleMania, there are a number of angles that will culminate in eagerly anticipated matches at the biggest show of the year. But for me the highlight of WrestleMania weekend will be Shawn Michaels’ induction into the WWE Hall of Fame. When viewed as one ongoing saga, I truly believe that what Shawn Michaels has crafted from WrestleMania XXIV to WrestleMania XXVII is a concerted effort to give himself and his fans a sense of closure on his career. Shawn Michaels has always been an incredibly talented in-ring performer, and his athleticism between the ropes might have been enough to make him a legend. But what makes Shawn Michaels the greatest professional wrestler of all time in my mind is his ability to integrate so many different types of stories into his matches. He has run the gamut from drama (vs. Chris Jericho) to tragedy (vs. Ric Flair) to satire (vs. Hogan) to comedy (R.I.P. Spirit Squad). Michaels carried the themes of friendship, camaraderie, distrust, and betrayal throughout his career from Marty Jannetty to Diesel to Sid to Triple H to John Cena. Michaels drew the threads of so many of his past feuds into his match against Randy Orton at Survivor Series 2007. Michaels has always been mindful of the fact that professional wrestling is ultimately a form of storytelling, and so it really shouldn’t be surprising that he has gone to so much effort to actually give his fans a sense of closure.

The story of the end of Shawn Michaels’ career is ultimately a fascinating hybrid of kayfabe and reality. In my mind, the story began at WrestleMania XXIV when Michaels defeated Ric Flair and ended Flair’s career. Flair’s career was on the line in that match in terms of kayfabe, but at that point the end of his career was also intended to be reality. The kayfabe reason that Flair gave for choosing to face Michaels at WrestleMania was that he wanted to face the best. Flair wanted to face Mr. WrestleMania, but Michaels’ reputation as Mr. WrestleMania isn’t based in kayfabe. Michaels built his legendary WrestleMania status on absolutely amazing performances, but Michaels ended up the loser in many of those classic matches. In terms of kayfabe, Shawn Michaels had a mediocre WrestleMania career at best. And so when Ric Flair said that he wanted to face Mr. WrestleMania, he was actually admitting the very real truth that he wanted Shawn Michaels to help him deliver one last great match. There was nothing kayfabe about Flair’s choice of his final opponent. Michaels and Flair gave us an amazing moment that night, but the lasting meaning of that moment has been intensely scrutinized in light of the fact that it was not truly Ric Flair’s final match.

Michael’s match with Flair led seamlessly into feuds with Batista, Chris Jericho, and JBL, and eventually Michaels found himself face-to-face with the Undertaker. Their match at WrestleMania XXV was billed as a confrontation between the two greatest performers in WrestleMania history, but Michaels and the Undertaker have actually found two very different types of success on the grandest stage of them all. Michaels’ success has always been based on the quality of his performances and not his win / loss record. Michaels’ success at WrestleMania has been built largely outside of kayfabe. On the other hand, the Undertaker’s much vaunted Streak is entirely a kayfabe construct. Win / loss records in professional wrestling only really have meaning in terms of kayfabe, and the reality of the situation is that many of the Undertaker’s WrestleMania matches have been sub-par at best. And so the match between Shawn Michaels and the Undertaker at WrestleMania XXV wasn’t so much a clash between the two greatest performers in WrestleMania history but rather between kayfabe and reality. Given the fact that wins and losses only matter in kayfabe, it seems fitting that Michaels lost that first encounter. Michaels put on a spectacular performance, the Undertaker maintained his Streak, and both men’s legacies continued to grow.

One year later, Shawn Michaels had made the decision to retire, but the kayfabe reason he gave for once again challenging the Undertaker at WrestleMania XXVI was that he knew he could end the Streak. Michaels claimed that he knew he could end a kayfabe construct in order to accomplish the very real goal of stepping away from the ring, and so the melding of fantasy and reality continued. It was as if two different stories were being told at the same time. They were two sides of the same coin, and when taken together they set the stage for Shawn Michaels to steal the show one last time. Michaels once again lost to the Undertaker, but he also once again put on the PWI, WON, and 411 Match of the Year. But what I will always remember most about Michaels’ retirement is the simple, understated farewell speech that he gave the following night on Raw. The overblown excess of Ric Flair’s retirement ceremony two years earlier stood in stark contrast to Shawn Michaels standing alone in the middle of the ring. Michaels received a tip of the hat from his final opponent and a hug from his best friend, but the words that night were all Michaels’. It was as if Michaels was trying to tell us that we didn’t need to put on a show this time, because we didn’t need to make ourselves believe a lie. As much as we may have wanted Shawn Michaels to tell us a lie, the one thing that that was painfully clear that night was that Shawn Michaels was speaking the truth. His career was over.

That was one year ago. As we wait for Shawn Michaels to be inducted into the WWE Hall of Fame, it’s incredible to think of everything that has led to this moment. His own greatness forced him into a situation in which he had no choice but to end the career of a legend, but it may have been the lack of finality in that supposed ending that gave Michaels the resolve to do things differently when his time came. He challenged the Undertaker in order to determine the true greatest performer in WrestleMania history, but the masterpiece they crafted only served to bolster both men’s claim to that title. And after winning championships and headlining WrestleManias and producing greatness between the ropes for two decades, Michaels wanted to prove that he could even retire better than anyone in history. His last match was the Match of the Year. Just think about that. His shoulders may have been on the mat, but Shawn Michaels went out on top in every way possible. The man who I believe had the greatest career of all time even found a way to steal the show on his way out the door.

But this is professional wrestling. And retirement is never forever in profession wrestling, right? I will admit that nothing is certain. There is a chance that Shawn Michaels will wrestle again. There is a chance that Shawn Michaels’ retirement will one day mean as little as Ric Flair’s retirement. I can’t make any promises, and neither can Shawn Michaels. In fact, all he’s really said is that he’s going to do his best to honor his word to the Undertaker and the fans, and he’s going to do his best to make sure that he doesn’t give us one more match. The fans will always chant for that one more match, but I have to question if we really mean it. What could Michaels give us that he hasn’t already? Do we really think that he’s been holding something back all these years? And most importantly, do we really want to have to ask ourselves what one more match would mean to our memories of the three-year story of Shawn Michaels’ retirement?

And so when Shawn Michaels is inducted into the WWE Hall of Fame, I think we each have to make a choice. We can be cynical and skeptical, because this industry has given us every reason to be. We can guard ourselves against one day looking foolish, because history has taught us that actually believing in retirement and finality always proves to be fool’s bet. Or we can try something different. We can take Shawn Michaels at his word and believe that we’ve seen his last match. We can celebrate Shawn Michaels’ career, recall our favorite memories, and relive our favorite matches. We can say thank you. We can say goodbye. And we can allow ourselves to find closure. Nothing is certain, nothing is promised, and nothing is guaranteed. But closure isn’t really a journey or a destination. Closure is a moment. Closure is a moment of harmony and a moment of being at peace with all that has been and all that will be. It really doesn’t matter how we got there or where we’ll go from there. It really doesn’t even matter what happens in that moment. All that really matters is that we allow ourselves the freedom to be in that moment. All that really matters is that we allow ourselves to find closure. I’m still not sure how I did that all those years ago when I said goodbye to my father. Like I said, I can’t actually remember what happened in that ICU, but I know that I felt as though I said all there was to say. I know that I found closure. Maybe being a child made it easier to simply be in the moment. Maybe I didn’t even know I had a choice back then. But I have a choice now. Shawn Michaels is the reason that I’m a fan of professional wrestling, and Shawn Michaels will always be my favorite professional wrestler. I can’t write about him without my bias bleeding into every word. And so I choose to love every minute of Shawn Michaels’ induction into the WWE Hall of Fame. I choose to share an hour of last things with a man that has given up so much of his life to entertain us. I’m going to say thank you, I’m going to believe in goodbye, and I’m going to choose to find closure. Because I’ve got a feeling that Shawn Michaels chose it as well.