10 Things You Didn't Know About Charlotte Flair

10. Johnny Ace Got Her Into The Business

John Laurinaitis
WWE.com

For someone who refers to themselves as ‘Genetically Superior’, Charlotte initially showed surprisingly little interest in following her dad into the wrestling business. Other sports grabbed her first, and the Nature Boy’s daughter was more interested in volleyball, basketball, cheerleading and all the rest. She went to wrestling shows with her dad but was more amazed by the wrestler’s ability to perform in front of big crowds than anything else.

It was Johnny Ace himself who changed all that. It was the weekend of WrestleMania XVIII, and The Four Horsemen had just been inducted into the WWE Hall of Fame. The Flairs (in this instance Ric, Reid and Charlotte) were sat in the Marriott hotel restaurant with Johnny Ace and the Bella Twins when the Senior Vice President of Talent Relations turned to Ric’s daughter and asked why she wasn’t following her father into the business. Charlotte had no answer.

A little over a year later, Charlotte was making a victorious NXT debut against - of all people - Bayley. There’s no great shock in the VP of Talent Relations doing his job by bringing talent in, but there is some charming symmetry to it all. It was Naitch who helped get Johnny Ace into the business, and Laurinaitis returned the favour.

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Contributor
Contributor

Born in the middle of Wales in the middle of the 1980's, John can't quite remember when he started watching wrestling but he has a terrible feeling that Dino Bravo was involved. Now living in Prague, John spends most of his time trying to work out how Tomohiro Ishii still stands upright. His favourite wrestler of all time is Dean Malenko, but really it is Repo Man. He is the author of 'An Illustrated History of Slavic Misery', the best book about the Slavic people that you haven't yet read. You can get that and others from www.poshlostbooks.com.