10 Problematic WWE Storylines That Have Aged HORRIBLY
4. Paige Makes It Personal With Charlotte Flair
The real story that matters behind what should have been an unremarkable December 2015 mid-match promo is that Ric Flair and other family members were not told ahead time that Paige was going to invoke the suicide of Reid Flair as a way to build heat for her Divas Championship match with Charlotte.
The secondary tale beneath the ugliness is that WWE thought to do it in the first place.
To recap, Paige had turned on Flair and broken up her short-lived stable with 'The Queen' and Becky Lynch because she wanted the belt and more respect than she felt like she was getting. This was enough to feed the machine. A title change wasn't planned, it only existed to tie the belt over until the new year, and the wrestlers themselves stood to make the match more memorable than any shlocky contract signing.
Until the remarks were made.
It's sad that it happened. Sad for the people closely tied to it, sad for wrestlers feeling obliged to do it, and sad for the reality of the "anything goes" mentality still plaguing the minds of more powerful people than it should.