When Ric Flair decided to seemingly out of nowhere knock Konosuke Takeshita's chops following his AEW Dynamite match with Bryan Danielson, it rubbed more than a few wrestling fans the wrong way. Sure, Takeshita isn't a chop specialist who uses the move in every match multiple times, but the “Japanese Phenomenon” is a more than capable striker with an in-ring style that tips its cap to the past just as much as it keeps an eye on the future.

Still, despite taking a stray from “The Nature Boy,” Takeshita took it in stride and actually thanked Flair for the constructive criticism.

“I have the utmost respect for Ric Flair,” Takeshita wrote on Twitter. “It is incredible to me that he mentioned me. I need to practice a lot as I haven't done much chopping in Japan. Thanks for the advice. I would like you to teach me if possible. Watch my chops grow from now on.”

When asked about Takeshita's response on his To Be The Man podcast by co-host Conrad Thompson, Flair actually took it in stride and complimented the young star for respecting his opinion.

“See, that’s just To Be The Man, I was not critical of his work, it’s got nothing to do with his work, both of those guys can work their a** off, I was just saying hit him hard,” Flair clarified. “And you know what? I respect that, I’ll take that all day long. He could have said ‘Ric Flair, you’re a dumba**’ and well, he’d be full of sh*t. Does that make sense, because that’s all that I could do. I was so limited in the ring, I mean, I was charismatic but if I couldn’t chop or say ‘whoo!’ I was sh*t out of luck. I sure wasn’t doing a ‘have a Corona’ until I got to the bar.”

When asked about Don Callis’ comments on Takeshita’s quote tweet, with Kenny Omega’s manager declaring that he’s “already better than (Flair) kid,” Flair buried “The Invisible Hand” despite it clearly being a work designed around the storyline that Callis is recruiting the “Japanese Phenomenon” to become his next client.

“Who’s Dan Callis? Flair asked. “I’ve got to say it again, who’s Don Callis? How many times was he world champion?”

When Thompson hilariously replied that that “I don’t believe that happened for him,” but that he was in the WWE for a time, Flair doubled down on his comments.

“No way, come on, doing what, setting up the ring?” Flair asked. “Come one, come on, Jesus Christ, Don Callis? Give me a break. It’s Mr. Flair Don, Mr. Flair. That’s what I mean, somebody’s always stepping in trying to get a relevant comment. Here’s mine, ‘who is Don Callis?’”

Jeez, poor Callis, all he did was play into his long-running AEW storyline, and he's catching strays from a WWE Hall of Famer? Well, unfortunately for “The Invisible Hand,” that wasn't the only stray he'd capture from a 20th-century wrestling luminary so far this month.

Ric Flair wasn't the only legend taking shots at Don Callis.

While Callis is doing just fine in AEW at the moment, working a pair of interesting angles with Omega and Takeshita, his time in WWE was far less harmonious, as he could never find an act that stuck, let alone a way to talk to his bosses that kept him in their good graces.

Discussing Callis on his Grilling JR podcast, Jim Ross explained just what went wrong for the native Winnipegger.

“I think he was his own worst enemy at times,” JR said via TJR Wrestling. “He could be caustic. He could be attitudinal, shall we say. Don is a very, very intelligent person, and he doesn’t have a lot of patience for ignorance, so sometimes he’s impatient when others don’t accept and embrace his ideas, but he’s a talented guy. He really is a talented guy.”

“I believe he’s a big asset in AEW affiliating with The Elite, Kenny, The Bucks, and so forth. I think he’s going to be very crucial going forward in their continued evolution. Here’s the deal. In a nutshell, he rubbed some people the wrong way, and if you talk to him, I’m sure he would say the same thing.”

“I think Vince (he rubbed the wrong way). He might have rubbed some of the underlings the wrong way because he was generally smarter than them. I think it got back to Vince and Vince got tired of hearing about it, so see you later.”

Fortunately for Callis, it would appear he's found a role that suits him, and because The Elite are EVPs of AEW, his chances of getting fired are minimal. In the end, sometimes things just work out.