At WrestleMania 39, Charlotte Flair lost her SmackDown Women’s Title to Rhea Ripley.
It was the second time the pair had met at WrestleMania, but the bout at SoFi Stadium was a far cry from their previous match in front of no fans at WrestleMania 36.
In the days that followed the match, many fans quickly claimed that it was the WWE match of the weekend. Flair and Ripley threw absolutely everything at each other and then some in a terrifically hard-hitting encounter.
Reflecting on the match on his podcast, To Be The Man, Ric Flair suggested that it should have been the main event on night one, especially as Ripley was the Royal Rumble winner. The WWE Hall of Famer went on to praise both women, toasting his daughter as the best performer in WWE today.
“Oh, I absolutely do. And I think they’re all going to be great matches. She’s on another level now, I know people are gonna say that’s your daughter. She’s the best performer in the company. She just flat out is, man or woman. Nobody can take bumps like that at her size, or no woman rather. Unbelievable. And Rhea stepped up. I mean, Rhea was a real pro man, what a match.
In a match like that, it doesn’t even matter who wins or loses. You have to keep track, you keep track of, you know, like at her stage because of the world titles but damn they stole [the show], I’m not kidding you. And I watched everything. I didn’t see anything. I saw good matches, but nothing like that. And they started out slowly, does that make sense?
At first I wondered because if there was enough interaction, enough heat, enough build up, build up to it, because they kept her off TV so much I couldn’t figure that out. I’ve heard an explanation, I’m not buying that. But boy, once they got rolling what a match, unbelievable.”
Charlotte Flair Taking Break From WWE
On April 4th it was reported that Charlotte Flair will be going on hiatus following her defeat to Rhea Ripley at WrestleMania 39. There is no word on how long the hiatus will be, only that it was Flair’s idea.
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