Fightful Mag Archives | Charlotte Flair: The Queen's Road by Molly Belle (Patreon)

This feature first appeared in Fightful Magazine. Issues still available at FightfulMag.com

By Molly Belle

The arena is dark – fans murmuring to each other in anticipation. Electricity can be felt in the air as the gravity of the moment hangs in the balance but is palpable to all present. As the lights flicker and the speakers come to life, hearts in attendance begin to beat faster, and eyes widen. The crowd erupts upon her entrance, boots shining and robe dancing in the soft breeze. Her blonde hair falls beautifully over her shoulders while she smiles, taking in yet another moment full of wonder and intrigue. The camera follows her gaze throughout the crowd, but upon looking closely enough into her piercing green eyes, one can see a passion anchored in love and respect. A passion that this very business we all adore so much is built upon.

Her entrance to the ring, especially before marquee matches, is one of those moments in wrestling that I enjoy most. It’s an epic scene of majesty every single time. That’s by design, as a queen should demand such attention and displays of grandeur. When she glides towards the ring, the energy feels different. It feels alive. Much of that is due to Charlotte Flairherself or who she is in a business that often has a mind to guide you in ways you never thought possible.

Admitting herself that wrestling was not her own dream, she’s walked into it and made it so. Following in the footsteps of a man who could very well be the greatest professional wrestler of all time, her road has not been an easy one, no matter what anyone may believe. Beloved figures in wrestling earn those feelings. They sacrifice. They grind. They leave pieces of themselves in the ring and give even more of themselves to the fans watching around the world. Larger than life, their place in the business cannot be overstated.

How can one possibly live up to a father who transcended the business? How can one be expected to carry a dream from a fallen sibling, someone whose love for wrestling knew no bounds? How can a girl enter a business literally built to favor men for generations and be expected to bring that dream to fruition? How does she change the world?

The simple idea that one could handle all she has in her life and career is staggering. I don’t know how someone does all of that. But Charlotte Flair has. Carrying weight along with her every step of the way, measured in expectations, fear, fate, and more – she has not just lived up to her father. Charlotte has not only lived her brother’s dream in his memory. She has not just helped change the entire landscape of the wrestling business for women but everyone. Charlotte has done all of that. But she has also done so while becoming what her nickname suggests – a literal queen of the wrestling world.

Accomplishments come when one is as talented as she is. Championships, main events, and visibility become commonplace. The top of the card is home. In this age of wrestling fandom, the dedication and luck that attribute to personal health can be as much a curse as a blessing. Fans complain when a wrestler feels forced. They sulk when someone has worked hard enough to scale a ladder very few reach the pinnacle. Sometimes for them, success and stale are synonyms. It’s a maddening reality to witness, and I imagine it’s one exponentially worse to live as the subject of.

Charlotte Flair sits atop the mountain in wrestling because she’s earned her seat. In history, royalty comes with a birthright. The other avenue to a kingdom is through battle. If not born into greatness, one must conquer it. One must take it. Sure, she has the same name as her father, but she had to work harder because of it. She had to straddle a line most don’t, honoring a legacy, all the while hoping to create one all her own. She has talked in the past about struggling to define her character with the shadow of her father’s infinitely drawn over her own. What could she use? What should she? How do you follow someone whose legend is bigger than any?

Simple. She doesn’t.

Ric Flairwalked one of the most wondrous paths in wrestling history. Territories. Companies. Circumstance. Titles. All of it. For nearly forty years, the “Nature Boy”paved a road meant for a king. He presented a character both envied and emulated still to this day. He styled and profiled his way out of Minnesota and into the hearts of a legion of fans – many still just as loyal today as they were years ago.

What Charlotte has done since the moment she stepped foot in a WWE ring is build a road all her own. She hasn’t marched on her father’s because no one can. Instead, she’s committed everything she has inside of her to slowly paving one meant for a queen. A road paved with courage, determination, blood, sweat, and tears. A road where she can be proud. One Charlotte continues to walk.

The Kingsroad, made famous in George R.R. Martin’s novel series A Song of Ice and Fire, extended from one end of a great kingdom to the other. At one end the uncertainty and darkness of a world left behind, locked behind a great wall built to keep out what once was. At the other end, glory awaited those determined enough to walk the long and lonely path, a city vast and filled with the riches of what could be.

When Charlotte enters an arena, wrestles a match, eats a pin, or has her hand raised, every second is dedicated to loving and respecting a business that has given her more than any other could imagine. She walks further along her fated path, remembering what once was and allowing it to drive her forward. Her destiny may not have always been known, but destiny isn’t always clear. Some of us spend our entire lives attempting to discern what it is we’re doing and why we’re doing it. Others are certain from the jump.

While Charlotte’s path to her throne hasn’t exactly been linear, she sits atop it nonetheless. She overlooks a kingdom she has helped to form. Claiming it by birthright in name only, the battles she has fought along her way have been legendary. A literal evolution at her back and the horizon in her sights, destiny has never felt as perfect when contemplating a career as it does hers. She is home in a WWE ring. With her robes dancing and her smile shining brilliantly under the brightest of lights that exist in a business full of them, Charlotte Flair walks along her road still.

So, what does a queen do when seemingly everything to be accomplished has been accomplished? When so many wonderful stories have already been told? She’ll continue telling them, in her own way, beautifully bridging fiction and reality as she always has. Then, she’ll do what queens do. She’ll rule.