Well, we knew this one was coming.

Mike Johnson reports over at PWInsider.com that, per court documents, TNA officially released Ric Flair from his contract on May 11, 2012. 

As noted, this news should come as no surprise to anyone who has been paying even fleeting attention to this ongoing story. Flair has been off TV for months now, and his current difficulties with TNA management have been widely reported. 

However, this news is additionally significant in that it heavily plays into TNA's current lawsuit against WWE, with WWE lawyers using this information to pick apart what they see as the inconsistencies in their competitor's claims against them.

As Johnson notes:

WWE made that statement in the court documents while noting that Flair had been let go several weeks before TNA filed a lawsuit alleging that WWE had gone after Flair, described as "under a TNA contract" in the lawsuit.

That date would be Friday 5/11 while TNA's Sacrifice PPV was on 5/13. TNA claimed in the original PPV lawsuit that Flair had no-showed the PPV. If he was fired, as the filing claims, he couldn't have no-showed as he was no longer employed by the company.

Interestingly, when it was first announced that Flair was likely parting ways with TNA last month, many predicted "The Nature Boy" would be headed straight back to WWE. However, similar to the reported situation with soon to be ex-TNA star Matt Morgan, the current lawsuit has seemingly put the breaks on that.