Charlotte Flair and Rhea Ripley Stole the Show At Wrestlemania 39 Night 1

Charlotte Flair is the most accomplished women’s wrestler in WWE history. Rhea Ripley spent the entire year gaining all the momentum in the world to become the 2023 Royal Rumble winner and get her big Wrestlemania moment and be crowned the new women’s champion.

But WWE treated this big face-off like an afterthought.

Instead of spending weeks building what could’ve been the biggest rivalry in the history of the women’s division with two of the most talented women on the planet, WWE gave allllll the attention to the Usos tag team title match and went as far as making it the main event of night 1 over the far more important women’s championship match.

Here’s what Charlotte had to say about not being in the main event:

Charlotte Flair takes issue with night 1 of Wrestlemania 39 closing with Sami Zayn and Kevin Owens vs the Usos.

Does she have a point?

Which match do you feel WWE should close the show with?pic.twitter.com/2X3wVoDdeo

— Just Alyx (@JustAlyxCentral) April 1, 2023

The Bloodline story involving Sami Zayn and the Usos is certainly one of the biggest stories in professional wrestling but you could not trick me into caring more about a tag team title match that doesn’t even involve Roman Reigns. Wrestlemania 39 could’ve started with this match. It in no way needed to be the main event.

Clearly both Charlotte Flair and Rhea Ripley went into their match with a chip on their shoulder about how they were being treated and stepped into that ring planning on stealing the show. They were 1000% successful.

Fans often treat women’s sports with kid gloves and they celebrate their accomplishments as if they’re little babies learning to walk. Look at the way people talk about Caitlin Clark—Iowa’s basketball star who is an automatic bucket but everyone and their mothers go crazy praising her while having zero interest in actually watching women’s basketball.

You saw this last Wrestlemania. Bianca Belair and Becky Lynch had a good title match. It was fine. But people talked about this match like it was the greatest match in women’s history when again, it was fine.

But this Charlotte Flair Rhea Ripley match was objectively fantastic regardless of gender. Both women put everything they had into it. At one point, Charlotte takes a nasty german suplex bump directly onto her nose and didn’t skip a beat.

Holy shit, rough landing for Charlotte Flair on this German Suplex from Rhea Ripley.#WrestleMania pic.twitter.com/QX8m7TdrNA

— PW Chronicle (@_PWChronicle) April 2, 2023

This match was crucial for Charlotte’s legacy and you can tell she was fully aware of it as she wrestled damn near with tears in her eyes for stretches in this match.

I think Charlotte is aware of how wrestling fans perceive her as a nepotism baby who gets handed nonstop championships regardless of whether or not it makes sense storyline-wise or not. I will never forgive them for having Charlotte take the Smackdown women’s title off Asuka the week before she, Becky Lynch and Ronda Rousey had the first women’s main event in Wrestlemania history. Asuka deserved to be in that match just as much as those other 3 women.

But perhaps that’s where Charlotte gets frustrated. She isn’t in control of how she’s booked. She shows up and does her job just like everyone else in that locker room but she gets looked at as spoiled because of who her father is.

Charlotte appeared focused on putting Rhea over in a way I don’t think we’ve seen before. Her willingness to get bodyslammed around the ring was noticeable. She allowed Rhea to get in more offense than most of Charlotte’s previous opponents combined.

There were no extra bells or whistles in this match. No shenanigans. No one ran in to distract a ref. No one went through a table. There were no weapons. Charlotte and Rhea went out there for 25 minutes and WRASSLED.

From the double big boot to Charlotte’s moonsault off the top rope onto the floor to Rhea almost making Charlotte tap out with her inverted texas cloverleaf to the top rope pump handle slam to finish the match, these 2 women put on a 5-star match directly in the faces of everyone in the back who didn’t think they deserved to be in the main event spot.

I’m just ready for these two women to run it back at Wrestlemania 40.

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