Charlie Haas's sudden retirement sped up by ROH backstage fight

Former WWE wrestler Charlie Haas shocked the wrestling world late Saturday night by announcing his immediate retirement on Twitter, just hours after his surprising defeat to local independent wrestler Jeff Neal at Ring Of Honor's house show in Asheville, NC. His tweets made it sound like he just had had enough of the grind of the business and wanted to go home to be a family man:

"Officially retired. No match against @Sheltyb803 nxt week NYC. Time to be a full time dad and husband. I've turned my spandex in for scrubs.

Thanks to all the fans throughout the years. I love you all. Stay safe and God bless. WGTT will always be a top Tag Team, forever."

My immediate thought was that Haas must have been working through a serious injury and decided it was time to call it quits, before his banged up body took any more punishment. After all, he had been fired by WWE on Feb. 26th, 2010, when he suffered a "mild to moderate" herniation of two disks in his neck, the C-6 and the T-1, and decided to take time off for physical therapy instead of agreeing with WWE Medical Director Dr. Joseph Maroon's alternative diagnosis that he "had a stinger" and was "good to go".

According to Bryan Alvarez in his latest subscriber only Figure Four Weekly Newsletter, his sudden ROH exit was a mutually unhappy parting of the ways, after Haas got into an argument with Grizzly Redwood and started a fight with the company jobber before his scheduled match on the show.

It is believed Haas was picking on Grizzly, matching his reputation for acting aloof and disrespectful to the younger, more inexperienced members of the ROH roster, and became enraged when the enhancement talent stuck up for himself.

ROH booker Hunter Johnston, better known by his ring name of Delirious, was one of the people who pulled Haas off Redwood. His temper understandably flared up too, verbally ripping Charlie to pieces before telling him his services for the evening were no longer required and to leave the building.

However, that didn't happen as Haas returned shortly thereafter and belligerently insisted that he would do the match whether they wanted him to or not, as he was a professional, which was a bit rich coming from someone who had just instigated a backstage brawl.

The decision was made by ROH management to allow him to perform, but never to use him ever again, fearing that trying to stop him would create an even bigger scene, whilst having all their officials and wrestlers waiting on call behind the curtain should Haas cross over the line.

There was no problems with the match itself, with Haas even putting the guy over, but his post match retirement promo caused more headaches as he went into business for himself with a vicious burial of Johnston, announcer Kevin Kelly and storyline commissioner Nigel McGuinness. In particular, Haas smeared McGuinness by repeatedly screaming about him having Hepatitis C, which is a bare faced lie. As he revealed in his documentary The Last Of McGuinness, Nigel once had Hepatitis B (a big difference), but has since been cured of the disease.

There was obviously locker room scuttlebutt that Haas must have been intoxicated for these outbursts to happen, but there was no hard evidence to corroborate these claims.

It is believed that Haas had planned to retire after this weekend's ROH shows anyway and this incident just led to it happening a week earlier than he had expected.

What can I say, other than it's such a shame for someone who had been a consummate professional throughout his career that it would end in such a sour manner.