Triple H and WWE's Growing Charlotte Flair Problem

Charlotte Flair has only just returned to a WWE ring, yet the fatigue has already started to settle in among fans. 

At face value, it’s not all that hard to see why, either. Flair returned, predictably won the Royal Rumble, and will go on to compete for a championship at WrestleMania 41 with no super-engaging result available there. 

The problem extends well beyond Flair’s latest return to win gold and dominate all competitors while sort of artificially inflating that 14-time championship count.

More than anything, Flair’s latest run reeks of missed opportunities. 

Flair’s first promo back said it all. After conquering the Royal Rumble and feeling heel-like at all times, she gave a sort of strange babyface promo while chatting with fans about her injury woes and doubts about her wrestling future. 

It was heartfelt, yet Flair’s reactions to the boos seemed as if she didn’t expect that type of reaction. Her actions, mannerisms and everything else clashed dramatically with the promo material itself, to the point one had to hope that she was almost playing a meta character who would go super-heel in short order. 

Instead, follow-up promos and appearances have largely been more of the same. Whether it’s an outright refusal to shift the character or simple promo rust after a hiatus is impossible to say from outside the company. 

But the rigidity of it, on top of the typical division-dominating actions, has created a nightmare scenario. 

From the beginning of hints that Flair would return, it was almost a joke amongst fans that she would win the rumble and challenge Tiffany Stratton for the WWE Women’s Championship. As it turns out, that has been the cemented plan since at least December, according to Sean Ross Sapp of Fightful Select (h/t Andrew Ravens of sescoops).

What made the outcome there even more jarring, though, was that the men’s rumble was an opportunity to prop up a riser like Jey Uso. The same easily could have been done in the women’s rumble, with Flair eventually getting her win at Elimination Chamber. Yes, this could have been avoided so she’s not winning the chamber the same night as John Cena, but this is doing Flair all of zero favors right now, and it’s a hole they might not be able to dig back out of to daylight. 

Predictable outcomes in wrestling don’t have to be a bad thing. But when it has been done over and over with the same character for so long, it hurts—especially in an era where long-term storytelling being an emphasis has left the door wide open for someone like Flair to play into it and generate massive reactions from fans. 

Instead, Stratton’s well-known dream ‘Mania match might struggle no matter how it pans out. If she retains her title over Flair, it’s a nice moment, but the stumbles leading to it will hurt the outcome. If she loses, it’s even worse, because she becomes a footnote and short-term champion. There’s little momentum to be gained for the fast-riser with either outcome. 

Flair won’t be in a great spot either way, too. Rather than gaining legit heat that boosts up Stratton in the process, we could be looking at go-away heat from fans in a hurry. That, or even worse—outright disinterest with little in the way of fan reactions. 

And look, the lines between babyfaces and heels is, in many cases, just dead now. Rivalries are a better way to think of things now and this can be a downright fantastic one. 

The problem, as hinted endlessly here, though, is the repetitive nature of Flair’s roles. Fans don’t need to be bashed over the head with how Becky Lynch played off reactions and became The Man years ago. How about, instead, pointing out that even Nia Jax read the room and has adapted her character to good results? 

If there’s a silver lining, it’s that a Flair vs. Stratton match itself should be downright amazing. It’s an obvious layup of a ‘Mania match and even has show-stealing potential for the night it occurs. 

It’s just a shame, then, that in a super-strong storytelling era, things have fallen so flat here around Flair’s character. Storytelling in the match itself, especially if it puts the loser on a year-long redemption chase, could be a good idea—but it’s immediately kneecapped out of the gates because of the build, meaning it has to work all the harder to keep fans engaged. 

There is, believe it or not, time for the Flair ship to get corrected before ‘Mania. But the past informs the future in all walks of life and based on that, this problem isn’t correcting by the time the bell rings.