Days before WrestleMania 36, Charlotte Flair (née Ashley Fliehr) appeared on the Muscle & Fitness podcast M&F Reps (download the audio version here). Flair, 33, has held numerous championship titles in WWE since her debut on the company’s NXT brand in 2013.
The former M&F Hers cover star spoke with M&F’s chief content officer Zack Zeigler and celebrity trainer Don Saladino about a handful of topics, including what it was like performing in front of an empty arena at WrestleMania 36 (airing on April 4 and 5 on WWE network), how and why she recently pushed back against the online trolls who hurled insults at her, and what life has been like for her in sports-entertainment as Ric Flair’s daughter.
Here are some highlights from Charlotte’s interview on M&F Reps:
“My connection to get in the door was definitely my dad, but [WWE] wasn’t going to say, ‘Okay, we’re going to hand you 10 titles.’ … My dad is arguably the greatest [wrestling performer] of all time. [But when] I realized it’s okay that my dad’s Ric Flair was when my career took off.
“That’s the same advice I gave Simone Johnson [daughter of actor and WWE legend, Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson]: Embrace who you are and don’t feel bad [and] you will carve your own path.”
“It’s our SuperBowl, and right now there’s no sports programming at all, so there could potentially be even more viewers because people need something to watch and this is new content.”
“The NXT title is being defended at WrestleMania—that’s huge. I think that’s why there’s so much pressure [on her] … because you have to believe that the NXT title is everything that my character wants to win and that is just as equal to Raw and SmackDown.”
“A typical day on the road is landing, checking into my hotel, maybe doing cardio or a workout at the hotel. A lot of the live events are in smaller towns or smaller markets, so you don’t always have access to bigger gyms, but there’s pretty much a Planet Fitness wherever you go.”
How she adjusted to life as a full-time WWE personality
“t took me about a year to get used to the schedule, but the schedule is always changing. When I first started, Raw and SmackDown weren’t two separate brands. So you had live events, then you did Raw and then you did SmackDown.
“Now I feel like I almost have an extra day off because I’m only on one brand. So it was all, it’s forever changing now. Will we ever go back to that? I don’t know.”
“With all the gyms closing down, it’s been great to work out outside and in parks. But I’m in the process of making a gym in the garage. So I have a squat rack, a pulley machine, and some dumbbells and a bench and Olympic bar. So I feel like I don’t need anything else.”
Why she recently pushed back against online trolls
“I won’t even write a bad movie review [because] I don’t want to post negative [things]. I can’t imagine being in high school and validating myself on how many likes I have. And that’s what kids in middle schoolers go through today. And it makes me like to think that my nieces and nephew have to go through that.
“When you read back [negative things people write on social media] you’re like, this is crazy. Like, people actually say this to me. So…people say this but it doesn’t mean it’s true.”
