WWE’s Becky Lynch addresses issues with Charlotte Flair
“We don’t like each other.”
That’s how Becky Lynch describes her relationship with Charlotte Flair.
In an interview on today’s MMA Hour, Lynch spoke at length regarding her former friendship with Flair, the title swap segment on WWE SmackDown that led to a backstage argument, the possibility that things could go awry in their match at Survivor Series on Sunday, and the importance of trust in the professional wrestling business.
With regard to their friendship turning sour, Lynch pinpointed her ascent to WWE stardom as the genesis of the personal issues between herself and Flair.
“I’m sure she would give you a different side, and I’ll give you my side,” Lynch said.
“My star was rising, we were the best of friends and it all worked when she was on top and I was below. And we could all see the way things were going in 2019. Like, people were really behind me, really rallying behind me, and this turn would turn me into a different league, and I don’t think, she couldn’t take that, and has never been able to take it since,” said Lynch.
Lynch went on to say that her surpassing Flair’s level of fame has had a negative impact on Flair’s career.
“And I think it’s affected her work. Even now, I think it’s affected her,” said Lynch.
“I think she’s potentially one of the greatest, but I think I’m so in her head that she’s lost it a bit. I think she’s lost a step because she’s got that jealousy and she’s got that little devil on her shoulder, and that devil is me always being one step ahead of her, and she doesn’t like it.”
“I think she thought her birthright is she’s the star,” Lynch continued. “Doesn’t matter that I started wrestling when I was 15 and left home and traveled the world to chase this dream, doesn’t matter that I was never one of the chosen ones. She was born into this and she deserves it. WrestleMania main events should be hers by birthright. I think that’s her thinking. I think we know where she gets that thinking from.”
Lynch stated that Flair’s response to the WWE crowd chanting for Lynch during a promo segment this past summer revealed Flair’s true feelings.
“She gave the crowd the finger, and she said it was because they were disrespecting Rhea [Ripley]. She doesn’t care about Rhea, she cares about herself. That was her own ego,” Lynch said.
Lynch also balked at Flair’s assertion in a BT Sport interview that Flair has received pushback for standing up for herself because of her gender.
“You can’t say it’s because I’m a woman. No, it’s because you’re an assh*le,” said Lynch.
Lynch went into great detail regarding the backstage argument that broke out after the Lynch-Flair title swap segment on SmackDown on October 22.
“There was a plan in place that was supposed to go one way, and if it went one way, then everyone would have had a moment and it would have been great. I, in the back, said ‘This isn’t going to happen. She’s going to do something else,’ and she did exactly what I said she was gonna do,” said Lynch.
“I told people beforehand she was going to make it really hard to do this angle, and it happened. There was no need for it. Because at the end of the day, it wasn’t about me. It was about Sasha [Banks] and her getting into something.”
“Sometimes things can happen out there and people can get carried away in the moment, and you don’t have time to process what happens,” said Lynch. “But when I knew that she was going to purposely disrespect me, I processed it a lot quicker. And so, I was able to hold it together until I got backstage. I did what I was supposed to do. And then when I got backstage, I lost it a little bit. I lost it. I just lost it.”
“I had to go out and do the dark match right after. So I verbally lost it. I still had a match to do, so I didn’t have time to be scrapping in the back… people were talked to. But at the end of the day, I was right. I was right,” Lynch said.
Lynch also spoke at length about the importance of being able to trust the people that you perform with in wrestling.
“What we do is extremely dangerous. And we’re trusting somebody with our lives. And obviously this segment wasn’t trusting somebody with our lives, but it’s the meaning behind it. And it’s happened with other things. And when it happens to other people, maybe they can’t say something. But I can say something. I’m not scared,” said Lynch.
We need to go out there and be able to trust each other, because that’s what this is. We need to be able to trust that one person is able to do what they say they’re going to do.
“It’s professional wrestling, and it’s a beautiful art that I love, and I love it more than anything. And I love it for what it is. It’s telling stories through violence, essentially. And when somebody goes out and you can’t trust them to do what we’ve agreed on doing, then what are we doing?” Lynch said.
“Nobody just cares about themselves. They care about the segment, they care about how everybody else looks, and they work together. Nobody else does this. There’s no other guy on the roster, there’s no girl on the roster [that does this]. Everybody else, when you work with them, you know it’s going to be easy.”
Lynch was asked directly about the chances of things not going as planned at Survivor Series, or her match with Flair not being good because of the issues between them.
“Yeah, of course there is. We kinda saw that a little bit of that with Charlotte and Nia [Jax] at one stage. When people don’t work together, it can go badly, and it’s not good. You’re watching for the wrong reasons,” said Lynch.
“I also like money. And so, this is money. People are interested and I love that people are interested,” Lynch said.
“And I love that people don’t know how this is going to go. I don’t know how this is going to go. I don’t know if this is going to be just an all-out brawl, I don’t know if this is going to be just venom behind every move, I don’t know if we’re going to be able to even get to the match, I don’t know if there’s going to be a fight backstage, I don’t know what’s going to happen. I don’t know, I don’t know. And I think that’s exciting for me and for the audience,” said Lynch.
“Probably nerve-wracking for the office.”
Lynch’s MMA Hour interview can be seen below. Lynch faces Charlotte at WWE Survivor Series on Sunday, November 21 at the Barclays Center in Brooklyn, New York. The show will air on Peacock, WWE Network and pay-per-view.