WWE Women’s Tag Team Champion Charlotte Flair recently reflected on her first-ever main roster championship win, admitting that at the time, she was not ready for the responsibility that came with being a champion. The moment took place at the Night of Champions pay-per-view in September 2015, when a still relatively new Charlotte defeated Nikki Bella to win the Divas Championship, ending Nikki’s record-breaking 301-day reign. The win was a pivotal moment in the “Divas Revolution” storyline of that era, but “The Queen” now believes that she had not yet grown into the role of a top champion.
In a new interview with Kate Mackz, the multi-time world champion explained her feelings about that first championship run.
“When I won the Diva’s Championship from Nikki Bella, I wasn’t ready. The title owned me, I didn’t own the title. You don’t want it to be about the title, you want it to be about you. It’s about the person holding it. So I didn’t think I got to that until I became the inaugural Raw Women’s Champion at WrestleMania 32 and I retired the Diva’s Championship.”
Her reign as Divas Champion lasted 196 days before the championship was retired at WrestleMania 32 and replaced with the new WWE Women’s Championship, which she also won. The transition marked a significant step in the evolution of women’s wrestling in WWE, and for Flair, it was the moment she truly felt she had become a champion. Today, she currently holds the WWE Women’s Tag Team Championships with her partner, Alexa Bliss.