Charlotte Flair On Women Likely Headlining WrestleMania 35, If WWE Should Have Intergender Matches
WWE's Charlotte Flair was a recent guest on the 105.3 The Fan radio station. During her interview, Flair addressed a variety of topics, including her views on this past Sunday's men's Royal Rumble match, where WWE reintroduced intergender wrestling to the WWE Universe.
Flair took a moment to recognize the hard work that the women of WWE have put in during this "women's evolution", attributing part of that to the belief that women have more to prove than the men in WWE. Flair simply wants the audience invested in the stories the women are telling and she's confident that they're achieving just that.
"I don't want to take away from what the men are doing, it's just, right now the women, I think it boils down to [women] have a lot more to prove," Flair explained. "Even though, I mean we've proven ourselves, but it's always like, every time you're on TV you want the audience to be at the edge of their seat buying what they're seeing, soaking in to the storyline. And you've got, for instance on SmackDown, you've got two women that want that spot. And you can feel that, and that competition creates, I think, a better product. So I don't want to take away from what the guys are doing, it's just, right now, it just seems like everyone's really invested in the women."
Flair agrees that this will be the year that women headline a WrestleMania event for the very first time, and with that, Flair thinks the women of WWE will have reached the zenith of their success. Nevertheless, Flair doesn't want to rest on her laurels, and she is determined to ride the momentum until she is main eventing other WWE events after WrestleMania 35.
"It looks like [women will main event WrestleMania]. I think that would be the pinnacle of the women's evolution," Flair said. "And I've said this before, you can't just main even that show and be like, 'That's it.' You have to continue that momentum. So say it is we main event WrestleMania 35, that momentum has to continue. You can't be like, 'Okay! We've done it all.' No, you have to continue to work for that spot. You have to continue to work. You know I still want to main event RAW, SmackDown, other PPVs – that never goes away. I think it will be the pinnacle but that's just gonna be that much more expectation and pressure."
Flair then confronted one of the more peculiar moments from this past Sunday's WWE Royal Rumble, when Nia Jax appeared and forced her way in to the #30 spot in the men's Royal Rumble match. Jax would take a superkick from Dolph Ziggler, a 6-1-9 from Rey Mysterio, and an RKO from Randy Orton before finally being dumped over the top rope and eliminated from the match. With such a lengthy gap since they last included legitimate intergender wrestling on any WWE programming, the reasoning behind the Nia Jax spot has raised a lot of questions in the pro wrestling community.
There was another sample of intergender action the following night on RAW, when Nia Jax confronted Dean Ambrose and forearmed him in the back as he was exiting the ring. Flair isn't completely opposed to the idea of men competing with women in WWE, however, she doesn't want it to become a consistent thing that's featured. Flair thinks that intergender wrestling will lose it's allure if it's something that is shown on a consistent basis.
"So at first when I was asked that question, 'Do you want to wrestle the guys?' I'm like, no, because I just think it's harder storytelling-wise," Flair said. "I mean, it's easy to wrestle a guy. It's easy entertainment, it's an easy – it's whatever, it's harder to tell a good story when you're wrestling all female talent. But I thought Nia looked like a star and killed it on Sunday, and she added a lot to the men's Rumble. She really did.
"Now I don't think they could have just thrown anyone in there. I think a lot of it was Nia's presence, her size. She could handle it. So now I don't know, maybe it will open the doors, but I don't think it's something that should be every week. I think it's something that has to be once every year, a novelty. Or else it takes away from the special uniqueness of it. I don't want to see that every week. I'm sorry, I don't."
You can listen to the full interview below. If you use any of the quotes in this article, please credit 105.3 The Fan with a h/t to Wrestling Inc. for the transcription.