Charlotte Flair has shared her thoughts on John Cena surpassing her father’s recognized 16-time world championship record, and she holds no ill will towards the 17-time champion. Speaking with The Takedown on SI, Flair explained that she didn’t view Cena breaking the record as a sad moment.
“Records are meant to be broken. I don’t wanna speak for my dad, but I think in this case I can, John was the guy to do it,” she said. “I think he couldn’t be more proud of John. Even me seeing John Cena and what he means to the industry and what he means to me as a performer, I don’t think it was sad. The record stood the test of time for a very long time and it was finally broken.”
Flair clarified that her own quest for championship gold has always been about her father’s legacy, not competing with Cena’s.
“The first part of my career, I really didn’t think about it. Now that I’m so close, I don’t think for me it’s about tying or breaking John, but… could I have the opportunity to tie or break my father. The competition was with him, not necessarily tied to Cena.”
Flair also reflected on her intensely personal WrestleMania 41 feud with Tiffany Stratton, which saw the two trade off-script barbs in the weeks leading up to the event.
“I think the match was everything that it needed to be. It definitely got super personal, extremely heated going into WrestleMania,” she said. “The personal story and how physical it was, the elaborate entrances, we both had our own unique entrance. I thought she showed up and showed out. I thought it was great.”
