Charlotte Flair is going to face Ronda Rousey at WrestleMania 38’s night one in the main event. Flair will defend her WWE SmackDown Women’s Championship against the UFC women’s bantamweight champion on April 2.
Rousey has garnered criticism from vocal WWE fans. When Ronda made her WWE debut in 2018 she made a meteoric rise to the top of the women’s division. Rousey was able to get a WrestleMania match within 6 months of her debut. She won the Raw Women’s Championship and it wasn’t even an entire year since she debuted. Fans felt like she took the spotlight away from other well-deserving candidates, like 2018 Royal Rumble winner Asuka. She has since become the target of trolls on social media, and was named the “most abused athlete on Twitter”.
Flair talked about her opponent and upcoming match with Rousey in an interview with SHAK Wrestling for CBS Sports, where she also mentioned the hate Rousey gets from fans. Flair defended her rival, stating that it’s not as easy as the keyboard warriors think to do what Rousey did in such a short time and it warrants respect.
“I didn’t know fans saw her in the wrong way. What percentage of people really say that,” Flair said. “If I listen to what people said about me, oof, I wouldn’t be here today. First of all, I’m facing Ronda next week. Don’t take this as I’m going to bat for her. I’m just saying, you can’t knock someone who did something in one year that takes many years and years and years to learn or to grasp. And she did a pretty damn good job in one year. It’s just easier to be negative.”
Flair also defended Rousey in another interview where she said that Rousey helps bring more attention to WWE and she welcomes such collaborations. “Sometimes people get critical of outside talent coming in, but she wants to be a part of what we’ve done here, that should make you feel good, and she does bring more eyeballs to people who aren’t necessarily familiar with the product, like Total Divas.” said Flair.
Ronda Rousey has opened up to the fact that she started resenting WWE fans for the hate she gets. She candidly expressed how she struggled with the adversarial relationship with her critics.
“Everyone was booing me out of the stadium,” Rousey recalled. “I was just like, man, fuck these people, I can’t wait to go home. When I left WWE, I had been getting booed out of the stadium, like, every day for months. Do I stay true to myself and tell them to go fuck themselves?”
Ronda Rousey and Charlotte Flair would go at it in the ring at the AT&T Stadium in Arlington, Texas on Saturday, April 2.
