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Female Superstars will main-event WrestleMania for the first time when Ronda Rousey defends the Raw Women’s Championship against Charlotte Flair and Becky Lynch at WWE’s biggest show of the year on April 7.
The rivalry began at SummerSlam 2018 when Flair pinned Lynch in a Triple Threat match, also involving Carmella, to become SmackDown Women’s champion. Following the match, “The Queen” was attacked by Lynch, who would go on to be known as “The Man”, and the two best friends were involved in some of WWE’s most intense matches of 2018, most memorably at the Evolution event in October.
Rousey entered the storyline in November when she was due to face Lynch in a Champion vs. Champion match at Survivor Series. However, the then-SmackDown Women’s champion suffered a broken nose and concussion at the hands of Nia Jax, forcing Flair to take her place against “The Baddest Woman on the Planet”.
The Survivor Series match ended in a disqualification win for Rousey after Flair viciously attacked her opponent with a kendo stick. Since then, Lynch has won the Royal Rumble, been arrested, injured, suspended, reinstated, injured, suspended and reinstated again, while Flair was hand-picked by Vince McMahon to challenge for the Raw Women’s Championship at WrestleMania 35.
Finally, after months of twists, turns and social media digs, the WrestleMania Triple Threat was made official after Lynch defeated Flair, courtesy of interference from Rousey, at Fastlane earlier in March, and WWE has now confirmed that the trio will make history by going on last at “The Show of Shows”.
With so much storyline build-up, there has been a lot to dissect with this rivalry, so let’s take a look at five facts you might not know about the upcoming match.
#5 Charlotte Flair winless streak
In previous years, the title challenger in the main event of WrestleMania has had to win several matches in order to book their ticket to the biggest match of the night at WWE’s biggest show of the year. Charlotte Flair, however, has had a very different path to this year’s main event.
Excluding the Tribute to the Troops taping in December 2018, the seven-time women’s champion has not won a televised match since she defeated Billie Kay and Peyton Royce in back-to-back singles matches on the November 20, 2018 episode of SmackDown Live, which took place two nights after she faced Ronda Rousey at Survivor Series.
Since then, she has lost matches against Asuka and Becky Lynch, as well as a tag match against Sonya Deville and Mandy Rose, and she has mostly been involved in promo segments on Raw and SmackDown Live throughout 2019 so far.
Flair’s PPV winless streak now spans six months, dating back to her match against Lynch at Super Show-Down in October 2018, and she has not won a regular televised match in over four months.
#4 Becky Lynch has never won at WrestleMania
Charlotte Flair has been dubbed “Ms WrestleMania” after appearing in high-profile title matches at each of the last three WrestleMania events, while Ronda Rousey referred to herself as “Mrs WrestleMania” following the announcement that she will headline this year’s show.
Becky Lynch, meanwhile, has had largely forgettable experiences on “The Grandest Stage of Them All” in the last couple of years. Granted, she was part of the Triple Threat with Flair and Sasha Banks at WrestleMania 32, but her importance to the women’s division decreased by the time that WrestleMania 33 and WrestleMania 34 came around.
At WrestleMania 33, she featured in a six-pack challenge for the SmackDown Women’s Championship, with Naomi emerging as the winner in a match that was originally scheduled for the kickoff show, and then she was one of 20+ women who took part in the Battle Royal at WrestleMania 34.
Overall, in three ‘Manias, Flair has won two of her matches at the event, while Lynch has won none. Rousey, the champion heading into the Triple Threat on April 7, has won her one and only ‘Mania match so far, teaming with Kurt Angle last year to defeat Triple H and Stephanie McMahon.
#3 Ronda Rousey is yet to lose via pinfall or submission
Ronda Rousey’s invincible status during her early days in UFC has been replicated in WWE, as she has been a member of the Raw roster for the last 12 months and she still hasn’t been pinned or made to submit.
“The Baddest Woman on the Planet” began her WWE career by forming an Olympic alliance with Kurt Angle at WrestleMania 34, where they defeated Triple H and Stephanie McMahon, and she became Raw Women’s champion four months later when she defeated Alexa Bliss at SummerSlam 2018.
Since then, she has picked up victories over almost every woman on the Raw roster, from Nia Jax and Ruby Riott to Alicia Fox and Natalya, while she even main-evented the all-female WWE Evolution pay-per-view in October 2018 with a victory over Nikki Bella.
Rousey’s only defeat so far came on a January 2019 episode of Raw when she teamed with Natalya in a losing effort against Bayley and Sasha Banks. Natalya was the one to tap out to Banks’ finisher, though, so Rousey’s record of not losing via pinfall or submission remains intact.
#2 Ronda Rousey is getting closer to a Charlotte Flair record
From the moment that Charlotte Flair stepped foot on the main roster with Becky Lynch and Sasha Banks in the summer of 2015, it was clear straight away that she would be the initial focus of WWE’s Divas Revolution.
“The Queen” won the Divas Championship from Nikki Bella at Night of Champions in September 2015, just two months after becoming a member of the main roster, and she went on to be known as “The Queen of PPV” following an unprecedented run of 16 singles victories in a row in pay-per-view matches.
That run finally came to an end at Fastlane 2017, where Bayley retained the Raw Women’s Championship against her fellow Horsewoman.
Ronda Rousey still has some way to go until she reaches Flair’s level of PPV success -- the current Raw Women’s champion has won all 10 of her PPV matches so far, with eight of those being singles matches -- but another victory at WrestleMania 35 would see her edge closer to her rival’s record.
#1 The WrestleMania main event was always the ultimate goal
In late 2014/early 2015, WWE fans had enough of seeing the hard-working ‘Divas’ receive fewer minutes on Raw and SmackDown than male Superstars, so they started a #GiveDivasAChance hashtag that trended worldwide on social media for four days.
It seemed far-fetched at the time to believe that a women’s match would last as long as 10-15 minutes on a pay-per-view, never mind main-event a WrestleMania, so it just goes to show how determined Becky Lynch and Charlotte Flair were to make it to the very top that this has been their ultimate goal the entire time.
In October 2014, one month before Nikki Bella and AJ Lee were given less than a minute to have a match at Survivor Series, Lynch tweeted that her dream WrestleMania moment would be for her to become “the first female to main-event”.
Four months later, in February 2015, Flair told the Gorilla Position podcast: "I know we're not men, but I want to be a main-eventer. I know one day I will main-event a pay-per-view. It might not be WrestleMania, but it will be a pay-per-view."
