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Charlotte Flair earned a shot at Tiffany Stratton’s WWE Women’s Championship at WrestleMania 41 when she made her illustrious return to the Royal Rumble and won it.
The temperature between the two competitors was turned up a notch on the road to WrestleMania. One of the last faceoffs between Flair and Stratton got personal when the two brought up their real-life relationships into the center of the ring.
As the back-and-forth began to fizzle out on the April 4 episode of “Friday Night SmackDown,” Stratton went hard saying that after WrestleMania Flair was going to be just as “alone” inside of the ring as she was on the outside and suggested she was “0-3” in her love life — an apparent reference to the divorces she’d gone through. Not to mention that Flair was only months removed from her most recent divorce from fellow pro wrestler Andrade.
The moment was widely talked about and analyzed in the days leading up to their WrestleMania 41 match, which saw Stratton retaining the title. The two have appeared together scantly since then.
On Tuesday, Flair published a piece in The Players’ Tribune recalling the controversial moment. She suggested the slight left a mark on her.
“And I think in those times when people have seen me appear rattled by the booing, those are just the times when I’ve felt like — at least for a moment — the boos aren’t for Charlotte. They’re for Ashley,” she wrote referencing her real name, Ashley Fliehr. “They’re for me. They’re because of the way I look. Or because of the energy I’m giving off as a woman. Or because of real trauma I’ve gone through in real life.
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“So when it got mentioned in Chicago that I have an ‘0–3 record at marriages’ … yeah, it rocked me legit. I’m not too proud to tell you that. I don’t need everyone thinking I’m playing 5-D chess all of the time. My reaction to that line was as genuine as it gets. Because — and maybe this makes me naive — in my head?? Charlotte hasn’t been divorced. So I wasn’t expecting it to come up in that promo….. and then all of a sudden I had an entire arena cheering as I got mocked for something that was (and frankly still is) devastating to me.”
Flair admitted that the personal stuff hits harder than any of the injuries or bumps and bruises that she’s attained over her WWE career.
Flair is a 14-time women’s champion on the WWE main roster. She’s also one of only a few who have won the NXT Women’s Championship multiple times.
She will have her sights set on tag-team gold on Sunday when she teams up with Alexa Bliss in a fatal four-way tag-team match to take the tag belts off of Roxanne Perez and Raquel Rodriguez at WWE Evolution 2.
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