10 Forgotten Final Wrestling Matches Of WWE Hall Of Famers

All good things must come to an end, especially the career of a superstar wrestler. The year 2020 kicked off with the retirement of junior heavyweight marvel Jushin "Thunder" Liger, his in-ring finale coming as part of a lavish ceremony at New Japan's Wrestle Kingdom.

The exoduses of other grapplers, however, haven't had the same pomp and circumstance, unfortunately. While some final matches are at least memorable they weren't set up to be finales. Kurt Angle and Batista's closers at WrestleMania 35, while each on the paler side of desirable, were at least memorable, so there's that.

Other wrestlers of their lofty peerage don't even get that luxury, instead going out in something other than a match witnessed by the viewing world at large. For the following wrestlers, bidding farewell to the ring came under more understated circumstances. Admittedly, some probably didn't even realize that their last match was going to be their last match.

The following is a list of 10 WWE Hall of Famers whose career enders didn't exactly register on the Richter scale. All of them were worthy of a proper sendoff, but it just didn't work out that way.

All good things must come to an end, especially the career of a superstar wrestler. The year 2020 kicked off with the retirement of junior heavyweight marvel Jushin "Thunder" Liger, his in-ring finale coming as part of a lavish ceremony at New Japan's Wrestle Kingdom.

The exoduses of other grapplers, however, haven't had the same pomp and circumstance, unfortunately. While some final matches are at least memorable they weren't set up to be finales. Kurt Angle and Batista's closers at WrestleMania 35, while each on the paler side of desirable, were at least memorable, so there's that.

Other wrestlers of their lofty peerage don't even get that luxury, instead going out in something other than a match witnessed by the viewing world at large. For the following wrestlers, bidding farewell to the ring came under more understated circumstances. Admittedly, some probably didn't even realize that their last match was going to be their last match.

The following is a list of 10 WWE Hall of Famers whose career enders didn't exactly register on the Richter scale. All of them were worthy of a proper sendoff, but it just didn't work out that way.

10. Ric Flair

Actually, "The Nature Boy" received a very nice sendoff - initially, anyway.

At 59 years of age, Flair performed as capably as he could in a "career-threatening" match against good friend and longtime admirer Shawn Michaels at WrestleMania 24. Before a large stadium crowd in Orlando, with a truly gut-wrenching climax, Flair went down in defeat, before tearfully bidding the squared circle farewell. Had it stayed that way, Flair's wrestling days would have ended with the dignity and grandeur that befit his storied career.

Sadly, that wasn't to be. Flair returned to the ring a year-and-a-half later for a tour of Australia headlined by he and Hulk Hogan, and soon after, Naitch came aboard a promotion that he used to put down in interviews: TNA.

In all, Flair wrestled a dozen matches in Dixie's playhouse, the last of which came in September 2011, on an episode of IMPACT. Appropriately, his opponent was Sting, his longtime rival that he'd faced off with on the final WCW Nitro ten years earlier. This time around, Flair's age was painfully evident in a very slow encounter, and the 62-year-old tore his triceps on a Superplex landing. He's worked physical angles since, but hasn't had an official match after the battle with Sting.

9. Ravishing Rick Rude

At the time of Rude's death in 1999 at the age of 40, the self-assured ladies man was reportedly training for a comeback to the sport. In the preceding two years, Rude worked for each of the big three promotions in non-wrestling roles, such as bodyguard and colour commentator.

His last match as a full-time active wrestler came in the spring of 1994 when he was wrestling Sting at New Japan's Wrestling Dontaku. There, Rude seriously injured his back when he landed awkwardly on a platform's edge after Sting dove onto him, and he retired shortly after.

Technically, however, Rude was a part of one other match after that, albeit without much in the way of physical exertion. Come 1997, Rude was a babyface commentator in ECW, his trademark being his tawdry and lascivious remarks, especially towards Francine. At that year's Heat Wave event, Tommy Dreamer and The Sandman needed a partner for a six-man cage match against WWE reps Rob Van Dam, Sabu, and Jerry Lawler, and Rude stepped in. It was all a ruse, however, as Rude immediately clotheslined Dreamer, and aided the heels in a group beatdown of the ECW faithful.

8. "Rowdy" Roddy Piper

The Hot Rod survived so much in his life, from violent altercations with fans, to numerous health issues. In 2003, Piper morbidly predicted that he wouldn't make it to age 65, and sadly, he was right, succumbing to an embolism-induced heart attack 12 years later at the age of 61. Despite advancing age, Piper, continued to wrestle beyond his 57th birthday, with his final match coming in August 2011, in circumstances you probably didn't expect.

On Friday, August 12, 2011, The Insane Clown Posse held a nostalgia-themed pay-per-view called JCW Legends and Icons, in the city of Cave-In-Rock, IL. Amid many short matches featuring various stars of yesteryear (think an admittedly more dignified Heroes of Wrestling show), Piper worked the main event, teaming with longtime ally "Cowboy" Bob Orton to take on hardcore legends Mick Foley and Terry Funk. Originally, the match was to be Piper vs. Funk, but an Orton run-in led to Foley getting involved, and the brawl was on from there. Orton pinned Funk to end what few realized was the in-ring swan song for pro wrestling's foremost antagonist.

7. Mr. Perfect

The decade of the 2000s proved rather depressing for WWE fans of the late eighties and early nineties, as seemingly the participants of WrestleManias 6 and 7 were dropping at an alarming rate. Davey Boy Smith, Road Warrior Hawk, Earthquake, Sensational Sherri, Big Boss Man, and Hercules all went in a several year stretch, with Mr. Perfect sadly joining them in February 2003, as a result of a cocaine overdose. His death came less than a year after a brief comeback with WWE ended.

Months following his exit from New York, Hennig, like other veteran names of the business, joined the upstart TNA promotion, and he was quickly treated like the Curt Hennig of old. NWA World title matches with Ron Killings and Jeff Jarrett followed, though his final match was admittedly less auspicious. Late in 2002, Hennig had run afoul of a stable of second-generation wrestlers, including David Flair, Brian Christopher, and Erik Watts. On January 8, 2003, five weeks before his death, Hennig defeated the younger Flair in an unusual "Axe Handle on a Pole" match. There was an awkward moment in which a young crew member kindly fetched the axe for Hennig, only for Perfect to aggressively shove him to the floor after the handoff. What was up with that?

6. Macho Man Randy Savage

Savage was such a magnetic personality and genuine superstar that it's quite odd how quietly he tended to leave major promotions. Neither his exit from WWE nor WCW came at a point in which he was being used as a headline attraction. His WWE departure came when he was relegated to commentary duties, while his WCW exodus occurred during a long period of inactivity, lost in the shuffle as his stardom continued to fade.

But neither company can lay claim to having Savage's final match - TNA gets that honour. To bolster their star power at the dawn of their monthly PPV run in 2004, TNA brought in the 52-year-old six-time World champion, who ultimately wrestled only one match with the promotion, and saying "wrestled" is, honestly, being generous. The match was a six-man tag pitting Savage, AJ Styles, and Jeff Hardy against Jeff Jarrett and The Outsiders at the 2004 Turning Point pay-per-view, with Savage's involvement relegated to a late-match run-in to score the pin. He was supposed to wrestle Jarrett for the NWA World title the following month, but backed out due to health reasons, and subsequently retired.

5. The Ultimate Warrior

From 1988 to his first firing from WWE in 1991, there's about three years of genuine Warrior magic that holds up a lot better than his detractors might admit. Bouts against Savage, Rude, and Hulk Hogan demonstrated how effective and captivating Warrior could be in the right circumstances. But after that first firing on the night of the 1991 SummerSlam, we seldom saw Warrior at that level ever again. Two short subsequent runs with WWE, a disastrous WCW tenure, and a few indy appearances failed to restore the Ultimate mojo.

Many assume that Warrior's final match came at the 1998 Halloween Havoc, where he and Hogan produced what was the Stayin' Alive to the Saturday Night Fever that was their WrestleMania 6 all-timer.

In actuality, Warrior wrestled one more time 10 years later. It was in Barcelona, Spain in June 2008 that a 49-year-old Warrior defeated Orlando Jordan for a promotion called Nu Wrestling Evolution. The card boasted an eclectic lineup that included Raven, Gangrel, Rikishi, PAC, Chris Masters, and others, with Warrior felling company champion Jordan in the finale.

4. Ted DiBiase

Older WWE fans tend to remember DiBiase fading away as a wrestler after the 1993 SummerSlam. After DiBiase lost to Razor Ramon in the evening's opening match, Money Inc partner IRS suddenly became a singles wrestler, and "The Million Dollar Man" was persona-non-grata for close to five months, before returning as a commentator at the 1994 Royal Rumble. When DiBiase bowed out from the WWE ring at the end of August, some assumed that that was the end of him as a wrestler period, and that's actually not true.

Days after finishing in New York, DiBiase returned to his former All Japan stomping grounds, reforming his old partnership with Stan Hansen. Immediately, they won the World Tag Team titles, and DiBiase wrestled for the company while taking the occasional American indy booking. However, neck injuries halted DiBiase's Japanese revival, forcing him to drop out of the 1993 All Japan Tag League. His final match came on November 15 of that year, a non-tournament bout where he and Hansen defeated Abdullah the Butcher and the second incarnation of Kamala, at an event in Saitama, Japan.

3. Bruno Sammartino

"The Living Legend" called it a career the week of his 46th birthday in 1981. With two epic-length WWE title reigns and an endless scroll of MSG sellouts to his name, Sammartino defeated George "The Animal" Steele in East Rutherford, NJ, before working three matches for All Japan days later. Sammartino needn't give us anything more, and could've settled peaceably into his colour commentary role, without ever having to take another bump. Come 1985, however, Bruno was back.

With his young son David now in the WWE fold, Bruno partnered with him in tag matches against Heenan Family members, as well as Brutus Beefcake and Johnny Valiant. He didn't stop there, warring in memorable matches with Roddy Piper and Randy Savage the following year, still a believable fighter, even approaching his fifties. By 1987, Sammartino, now 51, was working with the likes of Hercules, The Hart Foundation, and reigning Intercontinental champion The Honky Tonk Man on the house show circuit. His final match came on August 29, 1987, and took place away from TV cameras, as he teamed with World champion Hulk Hogan to defeat King Kong Bundy and The One Man Gang in Baltimore.

2. Andre The Giant

Andre and his Colossal Connection partner Haku dropped the WWE World Tag Team titles to Demolition at WrestleMania 6 in 1990. During the post-match shenanigans, Andre brutalized Haku and manager Bobby Heenan, leaving alone on the forever-awesome ring cart, to a stirring ovation from the SkyDome crowd in a desired face turn. This marked the last time Andre wrestled a televised WWE match, but it was far from his final overall bout. In fact, he wrestled over 100 matches from then up into December of 1992.

The majority of Andre's subsequent bouts took place in All Japan Pro Wrestling, where he oftentimes teamed with fellow towering legend Giant Baba, including in the 1991 Tag League. Andre's last match came with the promotion on December 4, 1992, a six-man tag team match in which he, Baba, and Rusher Kimura defeated Haruka Eigen, Masanobu Fuchi and Motoshi Okuma, before over 16,000 fans in Tokyo.

Bonus fact: seven months prior to that last match, Andre wrestled in a spate of trios matches for Mexico's UWA promotion, where on two occasions, one of his opponents was The Great Kokina - the future Yokozuna.

1. Hulk Hogan

Given how much Hogan was used as a special attraction for WWE in the mid-2000s, it's kind of surprising that his final match for Vince McMahon was his win over Randy Orton at the 2006 SummerSlam. There was nothing wrong with the match itself, but since it was tucked deep into the undercard, it's a bit underwhelming that that's where Hogan's final WWE hurrah came. Someone of Hogan's unparalleled fame should be going out in WrestleMania finale, you'd think.

The Hulkster has teased "one more match" for years now, but if we never get it, then his last dance came inside a TNA ring. Hogan wrestled five matches in total for the company, three of which were televised. The final pair, however, took place at live events in England in January 2012, as part of TNA's Maximum Impact tour. As it turns out, 4300 fans in Manchester witnessed Hogan's wrestling farewell, as he, Sting, and James Storm defeated Kurt Angle, Bobby Roode, and Bully Ray. Criticize TNA all you want, but they could release one hell of a "Last Matches of The Icons" DVD, no?