Charlotte Flair Still Chasing Her Father, Even After His World Title Record Fell

“Records are meant to be broken," Charlotte Flair told The Takedown on SI. "I don't wanna speak for my dad, but I think in this case I can, John was the guy to do it. And 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.”

The bittersweet moment for Charlotte and her family watching The Nature Boy's record finally fall came on the heels of a disappointing outcome for the Queen herself the night before.

Tiffany Stratton defeated Charlotte Flair during WrestleMania Saturday to retain her WWE Women's Championship. It was a hard fought victory for Stratton, in the truest sense of the phrase. It was clear after the final bell had rung that both women had been in a fight. One that had been building for weeks.

“I think the match was everything that it needed to be. It definitely got super personal, extremely heated going into WrestleMania," Flair admitted. "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.”

The defeat on the 'Grandest Stage of Them All' for the 2025 Women's Royal Rumble winner was only a minor setback in the grand scheme of her World Title aspirations.

The very same night that Charlotte Flair was celebrating her second Royal Rumble victory, becoming the first woman to win multiple rumble matches, John Cena was the runner-up to Jey Uso in the men's match. He would later vow in the post show press conference to win the Elimination Chamber in Toronto, main event WrestleMania 41 and win a 17th World Championship.

Regardless of how you feel about how he did it, Cena was true to every word he said that night in Indianapolis. He also declared to that jam-packed press room and the world watching at home that he would win a 17th World Championship so that he could one day shake the hand of the person who inevitably wins an 18th World Title.

Most wrestling fans will look toward Randy Orton as the man most likely to surpass the Greatest of All-Time. The Viper currently sits at 14 World Championships, but as stated before, so does Charlotte Flair.

The 13-year veteran is still performing at a high level, even after missing a year of action due to a major knee injury. The Queen has shown no signs of slowing down and has just as good an opportunity to win 18 World Championships as anyone, but for Flair, the magic numbers will always be 16 and 17.

“The first part of my career, I really didn't think about it,” Flair said about the World Title record. “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.”

While the possibility exists of one day standing on the same pedestal as her legendary father, Charlotte told The Takedown on SI that winning World Titles - contrary to what some may think - is not what motivates her to stay at the top of her game.

Flair is expected to compete at next weekend's Evolution show in Atlanta. We should have a better idea of what she'll be doing by the end of SmackDown Friday night in Pittsburgh.