This coming Sunday, Charlotte Flair is challenging Bayley for the Smackdown Women’s Title at Clash of Champions, and a lot of people (myself included) expect her to win her 10th WWE title. However high Becky Lynch rises, Charlotte still feels like the anointed face of the WWE Women’s Division, as we see reflected in those Smackdown ads on Fox.
In a recent interview with Smacktalks, Charlotte was asked who she expects to see as the next breakout star among the WWE women, and she had this to say:
Ooh. Well, I’m expecting big things from Nikki Cross. I’m a huge fan of hers. I know she’s been on the main roster, Raw and Smackdown for a few months now, maybe a year, I’m not really sure. But it takes time and I think she’s gonna have that breakout moment soon, and I’m 100% behind her. I think from NXT, Bianca Belar just has it, like she doesn’t have to try. She just has this natural swag. She’s a star and that’s the one thing you can’t teach. You can teach someone how to wrestle, you can come up with a character, but whether you have it or not, that’s on you and she has it. So I think she’s the next big thing.
I’d say those are both smart answers. Nikki’s actually been a wrestler for longer than Charlotte, so it makes since that she calls herself a fan. Bianca, on the other hand, is similar to Charlotte herself in being a phenomenal athlete who came to the Performance Center with no wrestling experience. Of course, Charlotte had a wrestling legacy but had to learn to project her charisma in front of a crowd, whereas Bianca Belair makes up for the lack of a legacy with a natural magnetism.
Smacktalks also asked what’s next for the Women’s R/Evolution in WWE, and points out that at this point, a big part of it is sustaining the gains they’ve made:
I think just continuing the momentum and headlining WrestleMania again, and just proving that it wasn’t just a one-year thing or a fluke. It’s, you know, that women can continue to deliver like this at high levels. And I think it’s just gonna take a couple of years to show that. You know, maybe we won’t main event this year, but it’ll happen again.
Listening to Charlotte talk makes a person excited about the future of women’s wrestling in WWE. Not just for more Mania main events, but for all sorts of matches to come, like Charlotte Flair versus Bianca Belair, which could definitely blow the roof off of any number of arenas. (Thanks to 411Mania for the transcripts.)
