Charlotte Flair doesn’t believe having an opinion makes her difficult to work with.
During an appearance on Power Hour with Ilona Maher (see video below), Flair discussed the balance between her competitive instincts as an athlete and the realities of working in professional wrestling, where wins and losses ultimately serve a larger story.
Flair was asked whether it can be difficult to reconcile wanting to win with being booked to lose.
“It is tough,” Flair said. “Because a lot of people that I work with haven’t played sports, and I also feel being a woman in the industry, sometimes if I do have an opinion, it’s like, ‘Oh man, she’s just difficult.’ No, I’m not difficult. I have an opinion. I’ve done this for a long time. I deserve to have it.”
At the same time, Flair acknowledged that wrestling requires performers to occasionally put their competitive ego aside for the benefit of the story.
“At the same time, you kind of have to let down your ego as an athlete and go, we are here to tell stories and we’re here to elicit emotion, and if that’s what’s best for the story, then you have to just, like, eat it,” she continued.
Flair said that is something she has come to understand better over the past year. While she previously attached much of her emotion to whether she was winning or losing, she now looks at those decisions differently.
“Because what I’ve learned over the last year, and I was guilty of this, is all I could attach my emotions to is winning, winning, winning,” Flair said. “When it’s like, wait, hold on. This still isn’t real. Your losses are making you win as a businesswoman. So, for me as an athlete, having to understand that has been such growth.”
Flair also discussed the creative freedom WWE has given her when it comes to constructing her matches. While the company determines the outcome and can provide specifics regarding the finish, Flair said she has long been trusted with figuring out how the match gets there.
“I’ve had for years now the freedom for putting the match together,” Flair added. “They might have, like, she’s winning or she’s winning, we’d like her to win by submission or pinfall. But in terms of the dance, they’ve always allowed me to put the dance together.”
