by Ric Flair
To be someone who was highlighted on the NXT specials on the WWE Network, part of the NXT weekly show opening montage, and to be featured prominently on the NXT programs were indicators that my approach was working, but I had to continue learning and improving. I even received more requests from media outlets to do interviews. The pressure grew every week. I loved it!
I was so proud to be a part of this group of men and women who were committed to making NXT a success.
My first string of title defenses was against Bayley. Bayley became one of the most, if not the most, popular personality in NXT. The bond she shared with the audience became stronger every week. The fans felt a lot of sympathy for Bayley. They loved getting behind her and seeing her overcome the obstacles she faced.
I continued to perform in tag team matches alongside my BFF partner, Sasha. Around that time, I started to work with another incredible talent: Becky Lynch.
Becky is from Ireland. She’s loved WWE from the time she was a child and has an incredible background. After being trained in wrestling by Finn Bálor, Becky performed in Europe, Canada, Mexico, the United States, and Japan. She studied Muay Thai in Thailand, was a personal trainer, got her degree in acting, and studied the art of the clown. Above all her talents, from the moment I met her, I knew Becky was a kind, genuine person. We became fast friends.
A story line was created on NXT TV where the BFFs would implode. Sasha and I beat Bayley and Becky Lynch in a tag team match. But when I didn’t help her against Bayley, it marked the end of the villainous group and put Sasha and me on a collision course to do battle for the NXT Women’s Championship.
Things were changing in front of the cameras and behind the scenes.
In the ring, the NXT fans began to support me after my match with Nattie. They started to respect me and my work. It meant a lot because those fans had seen me grow up professionally. To be respected for my work, especially when I was so new compared to many of my colleagues, made me feel good. On the other hand, this was not something I expected, especially since I was a five-foot-ten blond daughter of Ric Flair who proclaimed that she was genetically superior to everyone else. That didn’t sound like the kind of performer who could endear herself to the fans or evoke feelings of sympathy.
I was excited to work with Sasha. I knew we were going to have great matches, but away from the cameras, something had changed.
After I won the NXT Women’s Championship from Nattie, Sasha and I still traveled and trained together. But something was different.
Sasha took umbrage with the fact that the company made me the NXT Women’s Champion. She felt that she deserved to have the match with Nattie and to be the one holding the championship at the end of the night. Sasha felt that she should’ve been crowned the NXT Women’s Champion because of her talent and dedication and because she was more experienced than I was.
I understood why Sasha was upset and angry. She was an incredible talent, day in and day out. What I didn’t understand was why she would end her friendship with me because of a decision someone else made, and in this case, a company decision.
It’s not like I demanded to be champion or that I said I should be champion instead of Sasha. I always spoke about how much she helped me during our time in developmental, how much I learned from her, and how talented she was. I was proud to say Sasha pushed me as a performer and how much I admired her hard work and dedication.
A decision was made, and that decision involved me. Being angry with someone because of a decision the company made was something I just didn’t understand. Some might say, “Well, that’s easy for you to say when the outcome benefited you.” I didn’t know of any determination or outcome beforehand. I would’ve moved forward the same way, because I didn’t make the decision.
We worked together throughout the summer and fall. As is the case with former tag team partners, Sasha and I had tremendous chemistry in the ring as opponents. It resulted in a great series of matches.
Sasha’s resentment took a pointed turn during NXT’s final episode before the December TakeOver special. I knew where the segment was going in terms of setting us up for our match. I didn’t realize that she was going to take one of my DO IT WITH FLAIR T-shirts and cut it so it would say, DO IT LIKE A BOSS. I also didn’t know she was going to say negative things about my dad. At one point she even referred to him as a “pathetic old man.”
That’s when I knew that the fire people saw from the Boss character had truly arrived—it was real. Sasha felt that she was overlooked. She thought she was passed over and underutilized. She thought she had to fight for what she believed in—that Sasha was the best.
I would’ve been fine with all those things. I just thought Sasha would’ve spoken to me about them first. The situation was disappointing, especially when I remember how we came up together. I never imagined that I’d become alienated from someone I had so admired professionally and someone I considered a friend. I thought we’d be working “together” in every sense of the word, but I was wrong.
* * *
As 2014 came to a close, I got a taste of life on the road with the WWE main roster. I performed in matches at WWE live events and in matches for arena audiences before WWE programming went on the air. Three memorable shows were from Columbia, South Carolina, Augusta, Georgia, and back home in Charlotte. They featured six Diva tag matches where I teamed with Emma and Alicia Fox against Paige, who was the WWE Divas Champion, and the Bella Twins, Nikki and Brie.
To help promote NXT’s December 11 TakeOver special, I appeared on the December 8 episode of Monday Night Raw.
When I walked to the ring, I heard the crowd say, “WOOOOO!” I knew I was in Flair country, but that was from my dad’s work. I didn’t assume that the audience knew who I was. Whether you’re a “good guy” or a “bad guy,” you never want silence when you appear in front of an audience. There were two people in the crowd who knew me: my sister, Megan, and Reider’s girlfriend, Whitney, were there to cheer me on.
I took control early in the match. I hit Nattie with heavy strikes and enjoyed returning to my villainous roots for the night by talking trash to my opponent, her husband, Tyson, who was in her corner, and the referee. I loved telling the referee, “I heard you the first time,” when he’d order me to break a hold.
Nattie and I went back and forth, and one of the loudest reactions during the match was when I hit her with the signature Flair chop. We traded reversals for our finishing submission moves. On that night, Nattie’s experience helped her roll me up for the pinfall victory.
The match was about two and a half minutes. Would I have loved more time for my match on Raw? Would I have loved to leave Raw victorious before NXT’s major event? Of course. Anyone in my position would have. I was grateful for the opportunity to appear on the show. It wasn’t about winning or losing my match; it was about making the most of the time I had to help promote NXT to the larger Raw audience. I was happy that the crowd reacted strongly during the match and that they were invested in what we did. As someone in NXT performing on the main roster, I also wanted to make sure that anything I was asked to do on the show, I did well.
Three days later, it was time for the match at NXT TakeOver: R Evolution. The atmosphere inside the arena was as intense as I had ever known. Half the crowd chanted, “Let’s go, Charlotte!” The other half, “Let’s go, Sasha!”
This was a head-to-head clash of two former best friends. That was what the audience believed. Away from the squared circle, they didn’t know how true that was.
The intensity displayed in the match from the opening bell was more real than two women committed to a compelling performance. We both wanted to be the best. At all costs. Despite this match ending with a Natural Selection on Sasha from the top rope, our story was far from over.
* * *
At home, Tom and I worked hard to make time for each other. We completed our first Mud Run together. That Thanksgiving, we went to my grandfather’s. For Christmas, I had time off a
nd went to England with him to visit his family. I didn’t realize it then, but that served as a harbinger of my life to come: I left his family’s home early to do a WWE main roster Christmas tour.
As the NXT Women’s Champion, the goal was to raise the bar every time I walked through the curtain, on the microphone during an interview segment, and in the ring. I think that as matches continued to get better, we showed we respected the men’s work. They respected ours and knew we created an excitement for the NXT product. The guys never denied our passion. It was just a matter of wanting to be as good as the men. It took all of us working together and a lot of trust on NXT’s part.
When I saw Paige, Emma, Summer Rae, and Lana make their debuts on the Raw roster, it was like the future was real. I could see a path to WWE through NXT if I continued to improve as a performer. That’s what I wanted more than anything else, but it didn’t happen for me when I thought it would.
My match at NXT TakeOver: Rival was a Fatal 4-Way against Sasha, Bayley, and Becky.
This meant the first person who scored a victory by pin fall or submission would be the winner. From a story perspective, this puts the champion—in this case, me—at an immediate disadvantage because the champion doesn’t have to be the one who loses to lose the championship. That’s the type of suspense we want to sustain for the audience. For us, the storytellers, that’s where the fun begins.
In the opening minutes of the match, I was out of action after Becky Lynch threw me into the LED board on the side of the ring. On TV, Becky and Sasha had a business association, not a friendship. The match showed how fragile that relationship was when Becky turned on Sasha after the Boss tried to order Becky around and found herself on the wrong end of a perfectly executed pump handle suplex.
Becky turned her attention to Bayley until Sasha returned to the fray. One of the things that impressed me about Becky was that she could perform the classic “ground and pound” European style just as well as executing a missile dropkick from the top rope.
When I returned to the match, Becky and Sasha were my targets. Sasha turned the tables and flattened Becky and me with a double knee in the corner.
The match continued at a fast pace. The crowd came unglued when Bayley brought me down with a top rope Bayleycanrana, which was followed up with a Bayley-to-Belly off the top rope.
The match was all but over until Becky interrupted the referee’s count. The crowd was on a ride, and we weren’t done yet. Coach Sara did a great job in putting this match together.
Sasha took everyone’s heart rate right through the roof after she landed a dive outside the ring onto Bayley and Becky. I followed that up with a high-risk maneuver of my own and launched myself over the top rope onto my three opponents.
We wanted to show that all four competitors would pull out all the stops to be the NXT Women’s Champion.
The night belonged to the Boss. Sasha had me locked in a crossface submission. She released it only to roll me up for a pin fall—and the victory.
After 259 days, my reign as NXT Women’s Champion was over. Sasha was the new champion. It was her time to take the championship to a new level.
In that match, Bayley showed the aggressive side to her lovable character, and Becky emerged as a top contender for the NXT Women’s Championship. As for me, it was my time to prepare for the main roster—or so I thought.
While I hoped to get the call I had been waiting for, I heard about something that a WWE Diva said about me during a press interview.
Paige was asked what she thought about me and the possibility of me being called up to WWE’s main roster. Paige said that I was good but that I needed more time and that Sasha was the complete package.
Everyone’s entitled to an opinion. It disappointed me that someone I admired professionally, who was a WWE Diva with incredible equity with the fans, had made an assessment like that. Paige knew how hard I worked and how well my work was received. She knew I had been in the developmental program for two and a half years and knew what that was like. I understood everyone’s experience level was different, including work on the independents, but I didn’t expect her to say I wasn’t ready for the main roster.
NXT’s popularity continued to rise. For the first time, when NXT went on the road for a live event, it shot right past the Florida state line to the Arnold Sports Festival in Columbus, Ohio.
The next date that jumped off my calendar was March 27, 2015. The NXT live show in San Jose, California, during WrestleMania weekend. I had an NXT Women’s Championship match with Sasha.
The crowd was electric before the match started. Chants of “This is wrestling!” filled the arena as Sasha and I exchanged holds, reversals, and used every inch of the ring and arena floor to tell our story.
When I chopped the Boss and a sea of “WOOOOOs!” came over the crowd, Sasha, as always, did a great job in turning the tables to keep the crowd on their toes. Chants of “Let’s go, Sasha!” and “Let’s go, Charlotte!” bounced back and forth to opposite sides of the arena.
After almost twenty minutes, Sasha ended it with her Bank Statement submission. Sasha and I tore the house down. The crowd showed their appreciation for our work in the form of a standing ovation.
When the crowd chanted, “Thank you, Charlotte!” I thought about how far I’ve come in such a short period of time. I couldn’t figure out why I didn’t debut on the Raw the next night after WrestleMania. By that point, I’d been on several live-event shows with the main roster. I felt I was ready. It became more of a challenge to remain positive.
The four of us—Sasha, Bayley, Becky, and I—developed a nickname reminiscent of when my father was in the ring. Because of our work, the fans referred to us as the Four Horsewomen.
At first, I was hesitant to embrace this because of mixed martial artist Ronda Rousey and her group of fierce fighters who were already called that, but I figured since my dad was a founder of the original group and I was considered a part of this one, it was okay.
The reason this meant a lot to me was because this was real. No one said, “Let’s package these women from NXT together and call them ‘the Four Horsewomen.’” It was something that happened naturally through the fans admiring our work and contributions to wrestling. When I realized that, I couldn’t have been prouder to hold up my hand with that familiar symbol with three women I admired. We all fought hard every night for the progression of women’s wrestling and for it to be featured and appreciated in the same light as the men’s.
The four of us wanted the term women’s wrestling to be used only to describe that females were participants in the matches and not an adjective used to describe a certain style of in-ring performance or story line.
Days turned into weeks, weeks turned into months, and I didn’t hear anything formal about being called up to the main roster.2 I heard rumors around the Performance Center that the Horsewomen were going to be called up together. I tried not to look online, but the talk on many sites posted similar stories.
NXT continued to tour outside of Florida: Sasha and I main-evented the first of two nights in Philadelphia. NXT then went to Pittsburgh, Cleveland, and Albany.
The buildings were packed, and everyone was in NXT shirts. With everything going so well, the fact that I wasn’t brought up to the main roster started to weigh on me.
I felt that all my worries and anxieties were coming true. Was I not going to make it? WWE was known for having a “Divas” look. It resembled more glamorous swimsuit models and less of how I saw myself—a woman who was physically larger in stature.
Did I become part of the description of things that succeeded in NXT but would not succeed on the main roster?
I tried to keep things in perspective. One night when I came home from an NXT event, I heard through the grapevine that when I was training in Tampa, Riki impregnated a girl from his past. This happened almost a year to the date of his corrective surgery. Someone was watching over me. I thanked God again that I made it out and that I was free.
I said a prayer for that woman and her child. Then I turned my attention to what was happening in my own home.
Tom and I did everything we could to make our schedules work, but it was work that always interfered. Tom was unhappy with where he was professionally. He wanted to do more with his wrestling talent. He continued to get independent bookings in England and receive high praise for his work. Soon after, Tom was hired by TNA Wrestling. I was very happy for him and knew he could be successful there. Our schedules continued to work against each other.
When I came home from the road, Tom was leaving. When I was leaving, he came home. Tom’s travel schedule changed, his group of friends changed, and the little time we’d dedicated to each other before was now gone. We both devoted ourselves to our work, not each other. We started to drift apart. Going to theme parks and sushi Sundays felt like a world away.
A part of me felt like Tom wanted to go back to the partying lifestyle of old-school wrestling: living out of your suitcase, every night in a different town and a different good time after the shows. He used to say, “Wrestling’s not wrestling anymore.” I’d think, It is to me. We wanted different things. At that point, I felt that I had outgrown the relationship. I remembered that first call with Hunter and what he told me about relationships not lasting.
In interviews with people in sports and entertainment, I always heard that the life makes it very difficult to maintain relationships. They’d say, “Our schedules were different,” and you wonder how that could be. I can attest that it does happen and can end a relationship. And we weren’t even famous.
I went from one relationship to another. Looking back, that was not good for me. I needed time to heal from my relationship with Riki. I needed to process what went on in my life during that time and reestablish myself as a person. In many ways, because we were truly friends, Tom helped me do that. The romantic relationship should’ve waited, but things don’t always work out that way. Life’s not like it is in the movies.