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                    I Draw Wrestlers: Charlotte Flair

                    I Draw Wrestlers: Charlotte

                    I Draw Wrestlers: Charlotte Flair

                    Contributor Chris Guest writes “I Draw Wrestlers: Charlotte Flair?” Each week Chris will discuss a topic, and do a drawing that represents that subject matter. This is all posted to his You Tube channel (embedded video below), but we’ve reproduced it here in written form. He would love to hear your reviews on the artwork he produces. If you draw, send him a link through the comments on his You Tube Channel .  The best way to support him is by subscribing to his You Tube channel and connecting with him on Instagram at @IdrawWrestlers. 

                    The NXT Days

                    If we go way back into the sands of time to the first ever NXT Takeover, we saw the birth of Charlotte Flair. Sure she had been on the show previously, but this was the moment! Charlotte walked down with her father, while facing off against another legendary family Natty Neidhart with uncle Bret sitting ringside.

                    It was a great match, evenly contested going back and forth with Flair ultimately winning. Natty took Flair to a great match and hugging in the ring as a fan you felt this was what women’s wrestling should be like on the main roster. I can’t ever remember feeling that either were underserving of the spot, neither did I feel that either showed an air of entitlement due to their family lineage. Fans even had signs saying “Flair’s time to Takeover,” so I certainly wasn’t in the minority feeling this way.

                    Project Charlotte

                    But project Charlotte has run off the tracks. No longer is she universally loved and with certain sections of the audience, she is positively loathed.

                    You can’t blame Charlotte Flair in many ways. There was no way with her surname that the WWE were not going to feature her prominently. Coupled with her genuine talent, it supported the decision that Flair would be destined for the top. Make no bones about it Flair is a great in ring wrestler. She has an intensity about her work. It all looks solid as she incorporates her athletic background. On the mic, she is a great heel.

                    Flair has countless good matches in her closet against Natty, Bayley, and Banks. But more and more fans turn away from her. The Flair name is a blessing as well as a curse.

                    Charlotte’s Name

                    In a lot of ways I feel bad for Charlotte Flair. Why should anyone feel they can’t be proud of their name, their families reputation? People instantly label her as entitled because of her father Ric Flair, but why shouldn’t she celebrate her Father’s achievements? He is the most decorated champion ever in wrestling, and the WWE rarely mentions him. Added to all that is that her siblings, David Flair failed in spectacular fashion and Reid tragically died before he could make a mark. Charlotte probably feels a huge responsibility to carry on her father’s legacy. That is a weight I would not want to carry.

                    Too Much Too Soon

                    The problem with everything Charlotte is a condition that plagues many top tier wrestlers in the division. Too much too soon. Charlotte has now won 12 world championships and yet only made her main roster debut in 2015! Fans already know the Charlotte story. She will eventually beat her father’s record and when she is about to beat that record a tearful Ric Flair will be there to put the belt around her waist and raise her arm in an emotional finale.

                    The WWE may try to wrong foot fans in the run up, but we all know it will happen, and probably at Wrestlemania.

                    It’s very, very predictable and fans have become bored, angered even because it is so, so predictable. WWE does this with everything – the slow build is deader than Kayfabe (a video on that will be coming soon!) and everyone suffers as a result. It’s not necessarily that fans dislike Flair, but they’ve had too much of her. Like a box of chocolates – they’re great but eat them in an hours sitting and you’ll be sick to the gills! WWE has gorged itself on the Flair project and the fans are sick.

                    Sadly everyone loses; stories flash past in a blink of an eye and the wrestlers themselves don’t get over to the same level and the WWE has a stale product as a result. None of it is allowed to mature, to resonate with fans, there’s no time to care as we are onto the next thing so quickly. It’s always what’s next and Charlotte should be acutely aware of this as it is having a massively negative effect on her reputation.

                    Back to NXT

                    As we started at NXT, let’s look at Charlotte’s most recent return to the brand that established her. At Wrestlemania, Charlotte beat Rhea Ripley clean in the ring. Charlotte played the heel berating Ripley “Is this your NXT champion?” And then she beat Ripley clean in the ring with a figure 8 leglock. Ripley is up and coming. How did this help her and if Flair was going to win why was this not equally heelish? By berating Ripley then proving her point by winning clean it almost confirms to fans that Charlotte was right all along and that Ripley isn’t even on the same level.

                    It is not perhaps the way she won her recent NXT championship, but how she lost the belt which encapsulates why fans dislike Flair so much. Flair had the majority of the offense and didn’t lose the belt by being pinned or submitted. Instead Ripley took the defeat after being tangled in Flair’s figure eight. The commentators even said Flair “helped” Shirai win the championship. Why could she not lose clean? It’s made even worse that Flair was carrying an injury and will be out until SummerSlam, surely with that in mind she could have lost clean?  Surely her reputation, her legacy wouldn’t have been hurt too much by helping an up and coming wrestler establish themselves?

                    Asuka

                    Charlotte does this time and time again. Poor Auska, came off an NXT undefeated streak to lose to Flair at Mania. So insecure was Flair in her legacy that she couldn’t lose and then establish a long lasting rivalry.  As if Asuka hadn’t suffered enough, her recent matches with Charlotte have made her seem like an irrelevant champion, a “B+ player” as the WWE likes to say. Charlotte beat her twice and only lost to her after a storyline injury weakened her Hulk Hogan like “immortal” qualities.

                    Evolution?

                    No one is saying Flair shouldn’t win, but it is a matter of when and how. Flair either fails to understand this or doesn’t care. She arrived under the trumpet of the women’s evolution (despite TNA Impact doing it years earlier), but now is presiding over a women’s devolution.

                    Devolution you ask? Yes the women’s division is hurtling backwards to a single main event tier wrestler and several addons. How is it any different to the Alundra Blaze days or even Lita and Trish? We have Charlotte, Becky, and runners up – Bayley, Sasha Banks and then everyone else. You could argue Charlotte Flair isn’t responsible for this and that it’s the WWE’s poor booking, but if this was the case surely Charlotte has to speak out?

                    Evolution is meant to move forward, but the women’s division is moving backwards. Exactly the same people who arrived on Raw originally are over and Charlotte is the queen bee, unable to put over other talent and too preoccupied with her own individual legacy. Charlotte has to be aware of this, but time and time again she trots out the line “she’s the hardest working, most dedicated” Blah, blah, blah! No fan cares about this when the opponents Flair faces are made out to be such an afterthought.

                    Why Fans Turn on Charlotte

                    It is Charlotte’s inability to raise other talent around her that is the reason for fans turning on her. Not her work rate in the ring, not the fact that she’s Flairs daughter. It is her constant victories over talent at the expense of the overall division. She is the new John Cena, and her opponents are the Nexus and she should know better.

                    There is no point being a champion over a division of nobody’s. There is a quote that says “ Champions are not champions because they get everything they want, but they give everything they’ve got” and Charlotte should give her everything to establishing credible opponents because when she beats her father’s record she will need people to care about it, to cement the thing she is after – a long lasting legacy.

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