Charlotte Flair doesn’t have a WrestleMania opponent yet, but she does have a challenge from a champion.
NXT title holder Rhea Ripley showed up on “Monday Night Raw” and dared Flair, the 10-time women’s champion, to pick her for a match at WrestleMania 36 on April 5 in Tampa. Flair can choose any champion to face at WWE’s biggest pay-per-view after winning the Royal Rumble.
The Queen noted and was also reminded by Ripley in her promo that she has already beaten Raw women’s champion Becky Lynch and SmackDown title holder Bayley — who appears on a collision course with Naomi — multiple times during her career. Flair has never faced Ripley in a singles match. The crowd was chanting Ripley’s name even before she made her entrance.
Ripley has, however, pinned Flair, during a triple-threat match on SmackDown heading into Survivor Series. The 23-year-old Australian is in the middle of a big push from WWE after pinning Sasha Banks to lead NXT’s women’s team to victory at Survivor Series and ending two-time NXT champion Shayna Baszler’s 416-day run as NXT champion. Ronda Rousey recently singled out Ripley as someone she’d like to face. Having Flair do it would create an exciting and fresh matchup and a win for both participants.
While the angle was rumored after Flair’s Royal Rumble win, Ripley coming up to Raw to challenge her makes a ton more sense than the former NXT and Divas champion going down to Full Sail University to pick Ripley for her match without any real provocation.
Doing it the way WWE did provides a believable reason for the match, gets Ripley and NXT exposed to a larger audience and gives the yellow brand a potential ratings boost with Flair announced to appear Wednesday to answer Ripley’s challenge. If Flair accepts, it would be the first time an active member of the NXT roster would appear at WrestleMania..
However, quieting an upstart like Ripley is one thing, but it still needs to be explained why Flair would want to win a title that is not on the main roster and what her plans would be if she does win. She would be able to challenge herself in dream matches against a talented bunch of women in NXT, such as Candice LeRae, Io Shirai, Mercedes Martinez and Mia Yim.
All of this also gives WWE the chance to add another twist to the story. Ripley still has to defend her championship against Bianca Belair at NXT TakeOver Portland on Feb. 16. Belair, who was scheduled for a face-to-face with Ripley on Wednesday, becoming Flair’s WrestleMania opponent or this morphing into a triple-threat match is not a stretch. Why give one NXT star the Flair rub when you can give it to two?
In addition, Flair has praised Belair as “the future” and a “real stud” and told The Post in October 2018 that Belair “carries herself like a star” and she “just oozes confidence.” Belair was booked strongly in the Royal Rumble, eliminating eight other women before being knocked out by Flair. So there is already a story to build off.
Even with all the clear positives to this angle, the fact that WWE has to dip into NXT to find a suitable WrestleMania opponent for Flair is telling about the state of the women’s division on the main roster. The Four Horsewomen are still dominating the division and no new stars have been built.
Since the titles split in 2016, only Alexa Bliss and Naomi have held either of the belts multiple times outside of the Four Horsewomen (Flair, Banks, Bayley and Lynch). Injuries to Bliss, Ember Moon, Nia Jax and Ruby Riott in that time certainly hasn’t helped, but all but Moon and Jax have returned as of Monday.
Lacey Evans’ recent push didn’t result in a title win. Asuka has only a solid 100-day reign as SmackDown champion to her ledger. The return of Riott on Monday and the new-look Liv Morgan gives some hope of building new opponents, but right now WWE has run through the rest of the main roster and its Four Horsewomen matchups, causing it to tap into the uber-talented NXT women’s division. WWE easily could do so again, if Baszler ends up facing Lynch for the Raw championship at WrestleMania.
Though the Ripley move could be seen as just a ploy to use Raw and SmackDown talent to win the Wednesday ratings war with AEW — something that worked during the build to Survivor Series, but has not been sustained — it really is good overall business.
Knowing that a crossover with Raw and SmackDown stars is possible — we even saw it with Angel Garza stepping in seamlessly for the suspended Andrade on the men’s side Monday — should push the NXT talent and potentially draw more viewers their way. While it may feel disheartening at first, knowing your competition just grew should motivate the women on the main roster that much more to try for a breakthrough.
Pitting Flair against the NXT champion isn’t a perfect angle, but it’s far better than the alternatives.