It’s always hard for a wrestling legend to say goodbye. The business is such a specific esoteric community with its own set of norms and values that wrestlers themselves and their fans know and love. It’s hard to walk away after a long, successful life in that world.

The Great Muta was not only an all time great who earned the respect of his colleagues around the world, but also has had remarkable longevity as a wrestler. He got started in wrestling in the mid-1980s, before becoming a star to American fans at the end of that decade when he brought his ahead of its time aerial offense, martial arts-informed strikes, and—perhaps most iconic of all—his deadly green mist to WCW.

Muta is finally bringing his career to a close, nearly four decades after he first set foot in teh ring. A key step in his farewell process saw him wrestle WWE Superstar Shinsuke Nakamura on New Year’s Day. The finish had unexpected parallels to an iconic moment between Shawn Michaels and Ric Flair from a decade and a half before.

How Shawn Michaels Ended Ric Flair’s WWE Career

In 2008, Ric Flair worked his final angle as an in-ring performer in WWE, with the storyline that Vince McMahon proclaimed The Nature Boy would have to retire the next time he lost a match. After getting the better of a series of younger opponents like MVP and Mr. Kennedy, not to mention beating McMahon himself, Flair challenged his friend Shawn Michaels for a bout at WrestleMania 24.

The match was extremely well executed with a poetic finish that saw HBK mouth “I’m sorry, I love you,” to a beaten Flair, before putting his career to rest with Sweet Chin Music. It was a unique, emotional moment that highlighted the real-life respect between the two men and the reverence so many held for The Dirtiest Player in the Game.

Though Flair would go on to wrestle his share of additional matches outside the WWE spotlight, this match was, for a wide swathe of fans, the truest farewell to the Flair they’d known and loved for so many years.

How Shinsuke Nakamura Beat The Great Muta

Shinsuke Nakamura got special permission from WWE to stage a huge match between him and fellow Japanese legend, The Great Muta at Pro Wrestling NOAH’s The New Year, an event staged on New Year’s Day.

In an instant classic moment, the bout culminated in Nakamura apparently kissing Muta right on the mouth. Functionally speaking, he was stealing away Muta’s signature green mist, so that the WWE Superstar could spray it in Muta’s face and set up his trademark Bomaye strike (known as the Kinshasa in WWE). The finish was creative and poetic in relation to Muta’s career up to that point. All the more so, that kiss could be read as its own illustration of love for a living legend of the wrestling business.

Parallels Between Shawn Michaels Vs. Ric Flair And Shinsuke Nakamura Vs. The Great Muta

The Great Muta and Ric Flair each performed at the highest levels, including wrestling one another in the late 1980s and early 1990s.  While Flair is the bigger legend, Muta holds his own—particularly for a Japanese audience—as another man with a decorated history and a great deal of nostalgia attached to his name.

Flair wasn’t wrestling Shawn Michaels for the first time when they clashed at WrestleMania 24. Rather than the revisitation making the matchup feel stale, however, it added to a sense of history between the two. Similarly, when Muta faced Shinsuke Nakamura, it was a match that had happened before, with a degree of familiarity and previously established chemistry added to the proceedings.

Most importantly, though, the closing moments of each match complemented one another, each cut from the same cloth. Michaels made a move wildly uncharacteristic of pro wrestling when he told his opponent he loved him before knocking him unconscious with his kick finisher. Nakamura arguably did HBK one better in not stating his love, but instead expressing it with a kiss. There was the added poeticism of turning Muta’s famous mist offense against him, before nailing his knee strike finisher to defeat him one last time.

The Great Muta’s match with Shinsuke Nakamura did not, itself, mark the end of his career, but that moment is on the horizon as he has other high-profile matches lined up before his official last bout on January 22. Moreover, Muta put a bit of a stain on the moment with Nakamura by referring to him with a homophobic slur in a press conference after the show. Just the same, the end of the match itself stands as an unconventionally beautiful piece of business, grabbing the attention of fans around the world to kick off 2023.