It’s been many years since WWE fans struggled to cheer for Charlotte Flair. The crowd doesn’t always rally behind the 14-time Women’s World Champion.
Appearing on the “Power Hour with Ilona Maher” podcast, Flair addressed why WWE fans spent years rejecting her. She said,
“I heavily leaned on my athletic ability early on. The entertainment side and charisma did not come naturally at all. Now that I’m, what, 13 years in, being Flair’s kid, I wanted the fans to like me because I work really hard. But it could have been easier character-wise to be like, ‘I’m Ric Flair’s daughter. I get everything handed to me. So I don’t even do back exercises. I just have a great back. Why are you guys so disrespectful to me? No, seriously, I want to know why you guys are so disrespectful to me.’”
“I’m not taking away how good I am and what I have done for the industry. But I think what has helped my career so much in the last year is—you don’t want to cheer for someone who always wins. You know what I mean? You want the underdog to win.”
“By default, this last year, being out of the main title picture—and that’s what I was synonymous with—everything that I do right now. Every second, every minute, every hour, every day, I just want to be the greatest of all time. Literally, it doesn’t matter, male or female.”
“Me showing my flaws and stuff that I’ve gone through in my personal life, and actually being like, ‘It’s okay not to be that perfect champion of what you think a champion is,’ has allowed me to have this fresh layer of paint for the character.”
Flair Reacts To Being ‘Difficult’ In WWE
During the same podcast, The Queen shared her reaction to the reputation of being “difficult” in the WWE. Charlotte Flair said,
“What I’ve learned over the last year — and I was guilty of this — is like all I could attach my emotions to is winning, winning, winning.”
“When it’s like, wait, hold on. This still isn’t real. Your losses are making you win, right, as a businesswoman. So, for me as an athlete, having to understand that has been like such growth.”
“A lot of people that I work with haven’t played sports, and I also feel being a woman in the industry sometimes if I do have an opinion, it’s like, ‘Oh man, she’s just difficult.’ No, I’m not difficult. I have an opinion. I’ve done this for a long time. I deserve to have it.”
“At the same time, you kind of have to let down your ego as an athlete and go, we are here to tell stories and we’re here to elicit emotion. And if that’s what’s best for the story, then you have to just, like, eat it.”
