Wrestlers Who Can’t Stand Charlotte Flair

“The Queen” Charlotte Flair is already a future WWE Hall of Famer with over a decade of experience between the ropes, beginning in “WWE NXT” where she helped bring women’s wrestling to the forefront to help begin the Women’s Revolution alongside her fellow Four Horsewomen. The daughter of WWE legend Ric Flair, her natural talent was shown to the world in her first televised match against Bayley in July 2013, where she walked away with her first WWE victory.

Flair has been racking up the wins ever since her on-screen debut. From the NXT Women’s Championship and the since-retired Divas Championship, to her most recent title victory over Ronda Rousey on an episode of “WWE SmackDown” in December 2023 that earned her another reign with the then-SmackDown Women’s Championship, Flair has won it all. She is a 16-time world champion just like her father, and that’s not where the similarities end. Flair has worked the majority of her career as a heel, and fans have seemingly grown to resent “The Queen” for the opportunities she’s gotten amidst her numerous title reigns.

It’s not just the fans who resent Flair these days. Many wrestlers whom she has worked with over the years are not her biggest fans. From Tiffany Stratton and the pair’s recent war of words that brought up both women’s personal lives, to fall-outs with her former close friends and Horsewomen, to those she has defeated and seemingly stunted their pushes in her own quest for more gold, there are plenty of wrestlers, both in and out of WWE, who can’t stand Flair.

One of Flair’s most infamous falling outs happened with Becky Lynch. While the pair was tight during their time in “NXT,” things took a turn for the worse when they made it to the main roster. Their issues with each other were revealed to the public during a belt-exchange segment in October 2021. Both women were champions at the time, but were drafted to the opposite brands, meaning they needed to exchange the “Raw” and “SmackDown” Women’s Championships so they remained on the correct brand. During the segment, “The Queen” unceremoniously dropped her title to the canvas, leaving it for Lynch to pick up. Lynch retaliated by throwing her belt at Flair. Fans saw what became known as one of the more uncomfortable segments on “SmackDown” that year, but things were also heated behind the scenes.

Flair and Lynch exchanged words backstage, as “The Man” thought Flair was trying to make her look bad during the segment. According to those backstage, the situation was heated, but didn’t get physical. The pair faced off at that year’s Survivor Series, and Flair confirmed to Ariel Helwani shortly after that she and Lynch were no longer friends due to the competitive nature of the business. Lynch said on an episode of “Stone Cold” Steve Austin’s “Broken Skull Sessions” that the plan was for her to hold up both belts for a moment, but Flair didn’t want to look weak. On another episode of the podcast, Flair told Austin that she dropped the belt by accident.

In 2025, things between “The Man” and “The Queen” seem to be cool once again. They appeared together at the press conference after teaming up at Survivor Series WarGames in 2023, and both seemed emotional about rekindling their friendship. Lynch opened up further about their relationship and said while they may always butt heads, she was glad there was no longer animosity between them.

While Maria Kanellis and Flair never met in the ring, the former WWE Diva took offense to some of Flair’s comments she made in storyline when she was feuding with Carmella over the SmackDown Women’s Championship back in August 2018. Carmella was holding the gold at the time, and the pair were in the ring for a face-to-face with Flair backed up by Becky Lynch. Mella started off the trash talk with a comment about Flair’s changing appearance, and “The Queen” fired back with a vicious insult of her own. She told Carmella she was a “Diva living in a women’s era,” and that’s why the fans didn’t respect her.

Kanellis, who was a staple of the Divas era of WWE, who moved on to become a major force in women’s wrestling as it evolved in various other companies like Ring of Honor, didn’t take too kindly to the “Diva” comment. She took to her Instagram account and posted a photo of herself from back in her WWE Diva days with a message to Flair. She called herself a “real Diva” and said to be careful “disparaging the women that fought for what you are getting.” Kanellis said that all the women of the time were Divas for a reason, and everyone matters in the evolution of women’s wrestling.

“We were in the trenches together in full makeup, dresses, and heels every day, every show,” Kanellis wrote in her post, never addressing Flair directly. “Still fighting with babies, careers, husbands, and a stigma. Is it better to fight for the system or the spot? Both. Love you. Together we push the system forward, apart we forget our past. Those that forget their past repeat it.”

Tiffany Stratton is one of the most recent wrestlers to have issues with Flair, and those issues played out in front of crowds and those at home ahead of their WWE Women’s Championship match at WrestleMania 41. When Stratton was in “NXT,” she was often compared to Flair and called her a “dream opponent.” However, when Flair won her second Royal Rumble after making a comeback from a serious knee injury and decided to challenge Stratton at WrestleMania, things didn’t go as Stratton likely dreamed about back in her developmental days.

Things started to unravel during their first promo segment, which was a split-screen interview. Flair dominated the conversation and continued to speak over the champion, causing Stratton to get frustrated and repeat herself while trying to regain her bearings. The moment that really had the wrestling world talking, however, took place a few weeks later during an in-ring promo segment, moderated by “SmackDown” commentator Wade Barrett, so the women didn’t get physical. Though they didn’t come to blows, the women quickly went off-script. 

It was reportedly Flair who took things off the rails first with a line about being a “nepo queen” before posing for the crowd as boos rained down on her. The crowd appeared to rattle Flair, who gave up on the segment and told Stratton she could have the last word. Stratton took a shot at Flair’s most recent divorce, which Flair had only just opened up about publicly, calling her “0-3 in marriages” and said she’d be alone after WrestleMania, just like in her personal life. Flair called out to Stratton as she ran up the ramp that Stratton’s boyfriend, Ludwig Kaiser, was in her DMs. The women weren’t given live microphones again before their ‘Mania match, where Stratton retained her gold over Flair.

Out of all of the Four Horsewomen, it was Lynch with whom Flair had the most issues in her career thus far, but she and Sasha Banks (now Mercedes Mone in AEW) didn’t always see eye-to-eye, either. Their issues surprisingly stemmed back from when the Horsewomen were reaching their heights in “WWE NXT.” Flair noted in her book that she wrote alongside her father, “Second Nature,” that the pair experienced a strain on their friendship when Flair won her first gold in the developmental brand. She wrote that it began when she was given an NXT Women’s Championship match against Natalya at the first-ever NXT TakeOver in 2014, which she would win. Banks was left on the sidelines while Flair had an excellent match during a time when the Women’s Revolution was really gaining steam.

In storyline, Banks would begin to bring up Flair subtly in her promos and during their full-blown feud, she even took one of Flair’s “Do It With Flair” shirts and altered it to make it her own, something Flair wasn’t happy about. Banks also called Ric Flair a “pathetic old man” in promos. The feud led them to a match at NXT TakeOver: R Evolution. Flair retained her title at the event after pinning Banks following a Natural Selection off the top rope.

In “Second Nature,” Flair praised Banks’ in-ring ability, but didn’t further clarify if the pair had ever made amends before heading to the main roster. When the Four Horsewomen were initially called up, there were no backstage reports of any tension between Flair and Banks and the pair seemed to work well together in the ring and behind the scenes until Banks’ WWE departure in 2022.

Fans tend to forget that during the infamous belt-exchange segment, where the world learned Flair and Lynch were on the outs in terms of their friendship, Sonya Deville was also in the ring. The then-“SmackDown” general manager was meant to mediate the segment in storyline before it went off the rails. After Flair dropped the title and expected Lynch to pick it up, Deville, who was put in an awkward position when Flair went off-script, demanded “The Queen” pick up the title and hand it to her, instead, in an attempt to make things a bit less awkward.

Following the segment backstage in gorilla position, in front of Vince McMahon and Bruce Prichard, it wasn’t just Lynch and Flair who got into a war of words. According to PWInsider at the time, Deville was “mad enough to want to fight Flai,r” and she also got into an argument with her backstage. According to the outlet, Flair was escorted out of the building by WWE officials, and some close to Flair pointed out it was a sign of disrespect given her family’s history with the company and how important she was to the blue brand.

As of May 2025, there has never been an indication that Flair and Deville patched things up prior to Deville’s departure from WWE in February after the company chose not to renew her contract.

While Flair doesn’t appear to have any lingering issues with Nia Jax, the pair had a match in August 2021 that went from a professional wrestling bout to a legitimate fight. Flair was Raw Women’s Champion at the time, and the match started out relatively normal, albeit possibly a bit stiff and awkward. Things seemingly got worse and more noticeable toward the end of the match, however.

Flair appeared to stop selling Jax’s offense and kicked out at one. The women started shoving each other, and Flair slapped Jax in the face twice. They got into what looked like a real struggle in the middle of the ring, complete with shoving and hair pulling. When Flair attempted to get the match back on track with a chop, Jax refused to sell the move. Jax could be heard telling the champion, “Don’t,” while Flair shoved her. Jax hit Flair in the face a few more times before they got the match back on the rails. The match wasn’t for the championship, but Jax picked up the victory after a powerbomb. She was booked to win the match, however, and didn’t go into business for herself after just how messy the match was.

Jax would clarify on an episode of “The Sessions with Renee Paquette” that it all stemmed from a miscommunication. She said Flair is one of her best friends and she wasn’t sure what was going on, but it was intense. Jax said that they made amends almost immediately and agreed that things got out of hand pointlessly.

WWE fans really started to become disillusioned with Flair and her consistent wins over other fan favorites in 2018. Things only got worse for those who weren’t fans of “The Queen” when Asuka, the beloved “WWE NXT” star who never took a pin in WWE’s developmental brand, came to the main roster. Asuka was on such a hot streak that she had to relinquish the NXT Women’s Championship before getting called up, as no woman could beat her for it.

Asuka held the gold for over 500 days before joining “Raw.” “The Empress of Tomorrow” won the 2018 Royal Rumble and chose to challenge Flair at WrestleMania 34. Flair unceremoniously defeated Asuka on “The Grandest Stage of Them All” and ended her win streak, one of the longest in recent wrestling history, at 914 days. Impassioned “NXT” fans were not happy at the move and blamed Flair, in addition to Vince McMahon, for the terrible booking. 

Many fans argue that despite Asuka winning numerous championships since her initial defeat at the hands of Flair at her first WrestleMania, she has never fully recovered. Asuka has never spoken publicly about any backstage issues with Flair, but “The Queen” ending her impressive win streak is where many WWE fans started to dislike Flair.

Current AEW Women’s World Champion Toni Storm has been an asset to Tony Khan’s company for years now, but before she was competing against Mariah May in bloody deathmatches on pay-per-view, she attempted to find her way in Vince McMahon’s WWE after spending most of her time at that point in “WWE NXT UK.” Her final feud in the company was against Flair toward the end of 2021. Storm has never spoken out publicly against Flair specifically, but the former NXT UK Women’s Champion was just done with the company overall by the time Flair hit her with a pie to the face at ringside. Storm would walk out of WWE shortly after.

Following her departure from WWE, Storm explained it wasn’t Flair hitting her with a pie on national television that broke the camel’s back for her, it was what the segment was supposed to entail that solidified she was done. According to Storm, Flair was meant to rip her shirt off, and she was supposed to be standing embarrassed in her underwear. Storm said that she was reluctantly okay with the segment, as “people were being fired every single week,” but others fought back against the idea. It’s not known if Flair was one of those to speak out against the angle. Storm told Renee Paquette on an episode of “The Sessions” that the feud with Flair made her lose her love for the wrestling business to the point she thought about quitting forever.

Rhea Ripley is one of the hottest commodities in WWE right now, but back in 2020, when she was still wrestling on WWE’s developmental brand, a feud with Flair almost derailed her career to the point fans almost didn’t have “The Eradicator” that we do today. While Ripley hasn’t publicly commented on any ill will toward Flair, fans certainly don’t look back on these times kindly, considering how popular Ripley is now.

Flair won her first Royal Rumble in 2020 and instead of feuding with the main roster champions, Becky Lynch and Bayley, whom she had feuded with plenty of times before, she chose to go back down to “WWE NXT” and challenge Ripley for the NXT Women’s Championship at that year’s WrestleMania, which was held at the Performance Center due to pandemic protocols. Ripley was on fire as champion at the time and one of the most popular women on the brand, so fans thought maybe this was the time that Flair would lose to a hot up-and-comer. That wasn’t the case, however, and despite the women having a great match, Flair defeated Ripley to go on to have a lackluster reign with the NXT title.

The following year, Ripley was still trying to find her stride as a character and had replaced Flair in a WrestleMania 37 match against Asuka, where she won the Raw Women’s Championship. When Flair came back, it felt like Ripley’s championship reign was on borrowed time. At Money in the Bank, Flair defeated Ripley decisively. The pair would go on to have their best and most critically acclaimed match at WrestleMania 39, where Ripley finally emerged victorious as SmackDown Women’s Champion and solidified her position as the “Mami” we know today.