Over the past few years, Charlotte Flair claimed to be the one to possibly break the record of her father, Ric Flair, holding sixteen world championship reigns in the WWE and WCW, the maximum number a superstar can boast of. However, she was unable to reach the landmark, first due to irregular attendance on WWE programming, mostly due to injury reasons.
This April, John Cena made history at WrestleMania 41 when he defeated Cody Rhodes to win the Undisputed WWE Championship to become a 17-time World Champion, breaking the earlier record that he had shared with Ric Flair for the past eight years.
In an interview with The Takedown on Sports Illustrated, Charlotte Flair has explained that she’s not upset that the iconic record by her father moved to second place, and she wasn’t the one to capture the new accolade to keep the record in the family,
“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.”
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Proceeding in the conversation, Charlotte Flair added that Cena’s victory wasn’t just about breaking the record and achieving a new one, but rather it marked the culmination of a legendary career, given that she would be done with her pro-wrestling stint later this year.
Charlotte Flair is rather pleased to see the ‘Never Seen Seventeen’ becoming a reality in the sports entertainment industry after decades,
“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.”
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Charlotte Flair still has the opportunity to surpass John Cena’s record
Charlotte Flair currently has 14 World Championship reigns in her name, putting her in a tie with Randy Orton. The two also are the closest active WWE performers to potentially match up or surpass Cena’s 17 number as they intend to continue their careers for multiple years to follow.
Among the 14s, Charlotte Flair held the WWE Divas Championship once, of which she was the final holder, the WWE (Raw) Women’s Championship a record six times, also the inaugural holder of the belt, and the SmackDown Women’s Championship a record seven times. WWE doesn’t count two of her NXT Women’s Championship reigns as world title reigns.