WWE Superstar and current SmackDown Women’s Champion Charlotte Flair sat down with The Daytona Beach News-Journal ahead of her appearance as honorary race official for the Daytona 500. She spoke on numerous topics which you can read more on below.
On what it meant to return and immediately win the title in December:
I was feeling refreshed. I also have never had a natural comeback moment. I’ve had many amazing emotional moments, but it was the first time that I had been away since 2015. To come back and hear the reception — especially being in Tampa where my career started, the whole process coming full circle and to see how excited people were to see me — I was sincerely touched.
On not telling her father Ric Flair about her surprise return:
Yeah, he was mad. Ronda Rousey saw him in the hallway and said, ‘I’m going to see Charlotte.’ My dad was like, ‘What?’ He didn’t even text me. Then Ronda did and said, ‘He didn’t even know you were here?” I gasped and said, “Ugh, he’s going to be so mad.” It’s not that I didn’t want to tell him, or that I didn’t think he could keep a secret. I just wanted this to be special. He always sits at home and watches SmackDown. I wanted him to be surprised. It kind of got a little messy toward the end.
On if she prefers to wrestle as a face or as a heel:
After I left in the ‘I Quit’ match (with Rousey), I wanted to be a heel. I like being a bad guy; I just do. Since I’ve come back, there are moments where I want to be a bad guy again due to certain creative things, but it’s hard now seeing these kids excited to see me. Not that it wasn’t there before, but I wasn’t actively paying attention to it or looking forward to it. It was my job to get the person in front of me cheered. Now that it’s not my role, it’s hard to be like, ‘Oh, I really want to be bad just because I like being bad.’ On paper, I just look like the bad guy — Ric Flair’s daughter, 5-foot-10, athletic, blonde, 14 titles. It’s very hard to connect or find, other than a father-daughter relationship, a way for the Charlotte character to connect to the audience.
On getting married to Andrade El Idolo and spending time in Italy:
I was blown away. I’ve performed in Italy but never been to the Colosseum, the Vatican, the museums, Florence, Venice. Everything — the culture, the food, the art. I felt so uneducated before that trip. Oh, and the gelato in Florence. Mmm. Amazing. The Colosseum, when you’re standing there, it’s magical. I know that sounds cliché, but it really is.
Charlotte also mentioned during the interview that she would like to work a program with Bianca Belair at some point in the future. You can read the entire interview here.
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