Ric Flair discusses the announcement that Charlotte Flair will face Rhea Ripley at WrestleMania.
Charlotte had been absent from WWE for several months after she lost the SmackDown Women's Championshop to Ronda Rousey at WWE WrestleMania Backlash 2022. She returned and beat Rousey in an impromptu title match to regain the gold on the December 30 episode of WWE SmackDown. Meanwhile, Rousey had been a featured member of the Judgment Day alongside Finn Balor, Damian Priest, and Dominik Mysterio in recent months.
Ripley won the Women's Royal Rumble Match at WWE Royal Rumble 2023, and she chose Charlotte as her WrestleMania opponent the next night on WWE Raw. The bout will be the first ever one-on-one women's rematch in WrestleMania history; in 2020, Charlotte won the Royal Rumble and defeated Ripley to win the NXT Championship at WrestleMania 36.
Speaking on his To Be The Man podcast, Ric Flair shared his thoughts on the announcement. He stated that he believes their match has to be one of the main events of WrestleMania. "The Nature Boy" also noted that Ripley has matured a lot and praised her previous WrestleMania match with Charlotte. Ric then called Charlotte the best worker in the company and stated that their match will be hard to follow.
"It’s gotta be one of the main events. It’s gonna be spectacular. Rhea has matured so much. That match they had in front of no people a couple years ago was fantastic. I can only imagine, I mean ‘The Queen’ is in a place where… she just plain and simply is the best worker in the business, in the company. I’m sure that she and Rhea will tear the joint down. If I were the guys, I wouldn’t want to follow them, and I would be hope that they’d be on last," Ric said with a laugh.
The WWE Hall of Famer continued by describing how he's happy to see Ripley branching off on her own, rather than remaining tied to the Judgment Day. He noted that he wasn't sure whether Ripley will stay with the faction after WrestleMania and called her a great singles attraction. The legend then repeated that he believes Charlotte and Ripley will tear it down.
"As much as I enjoy that group she’s with, which worked out really nice, I’m really happy that she’s going out on her own now again. I like that. Win, lose, or draw, I don’t know whether she’ll stay with that group or not, but she is such a great singles attraction. She and ‘The Queen’ will just tear it down. I’m so excited for both of them," he said.
Charlotte recently described how she felt like she made the main event of WrestleMania 35 come together. Check out her comments here.
In an interview, Charlotte discussed her return to the WWE and the fans' reaction.
Click here to see what Ripley had to say about getting compared to Chyna.
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