It was previously reported by Dave Meltzer of F4WOnline.com that an angle between Randy Orton and Ric Flair was one of the few creative ideas approved by Vince McMahon prior to last week’s WWE RAW TV tapings. Meltzer noted the following:
“It’s already taped so Ric Flair is there and the Ric Flair angle I guess is probably already taped unless they canned it. At the last word, when they were doing the taping that afternoon, the Ric Flair angle was definitely still on the show. The only two things that were there [in the script] were Shane McMahon’s thing and the Ric Flair-Randy Orton angle and then they threw that show together at the end.”
The belief is that the segment will air on this coming Monday’s RAW and it was designed to write Flair out of storylines heading into the Summerslam PPV, according to Paul Davis of WrestlingNews.co. The site was told that the “feeling is that it’s better to solely focus on Orton and McIntyre and there would be no need to use Flair in this feud.”