WWE SmackDown Live Women’s Champion Charlotte Flair spoke to Sporting News to promote this weekend’s WrestleMania 35. Flair will defend her title in a Winner Takes All match against RAW Women’s Champion Ronda Rousey and Becky Lynch. The match will be the first women’s bout in WWE history to main event a WrestleMania.
During her interview, Flair revealed her father, two-time WWE Hall Of Famer Ric Flair’s, reaction to the news that she’d be headlining WrestleMania. She also commented on Asuka not being involved in the match.
Here are the highlights:
Her reaction to finding out she’d be headlining WrestleMania:
It’s one of those things that I had been saying during a couple of interviews that I’m going to main event WrestleMania — whether it’s in five years, this year, next year — so, when I found out, it was just a rush of emotions. You’re saying something and you’ve proven it to the universe and it finally happened.
All I wanted to do is text everyone who had been a part of my journey and who helped me get to where I am. I was emotional and I wanted to text [trainers from the WWE Performance Center] Sara del Rey, Fit Finlay and Norman Smiley and the production crew. This has been a collective effort from all the women from the past and the present and we’re hopefully paving the way for the future of the rising stars of NXT. This means absolutely the world to me and I feel like it truly is my destiny.
Ric Flair’s reaction:
My dad is my biggest fan, my biggest supporter, my best friend. He truly understands what it has been like in the journey, with the ups and downs and helping me every day in how to get better, what I need to do to get better, what I did to get here.
He’s been so connected with what it has taken me to get here that … he just said, ‘You deserve it and you did it all on your own.’ He emphasizes that every single day that ‘You did this all on your own. This has nothing to do with me.’ And just, ‘I’m proud of you.’
Asuka not being involved in the match:
Here’s the thing — last year, when I wrestled Asuka to break her streak at WrestleMania 34, all I could think about is making her proud. I mean, she’s wrestled all over the world. She had this incredible streak that no one had seen in the history of the business. So, for me, wrestling her … everyone had so much hype for this match, so it was really living up to the expectations and cementing my legacy.
And then, obviously, having the title match out of nowhere with her [on SmackDown last month], in my opinion, will only open up more doors for people to see the magic that Asuka and I could make and that’s the bigger picture. People will regard [Asuka’s omission from the main event] as a negative, but no. This is a story. People want better.
This just has the opportunity just to get better for people to see just how much further Asuka and I could take each other in the ring and entertainment-wise. There’s no other woman that I’d rather do that with than Asuka because people have already seen us have two — well, three now — matches and I know what we could do.
