5 Ups & 3 Downs From WWE Fastlane 2023 (Results & Review)

1. When In Doubt, Push Charlotte Harder

WWE Fastlane 2023 Charlotte Flair Asuka
WWE.com

Charlotte Flair is a highly decorated, talented wrestler who is a valuable asset to WWE. All of that can be true, and she can be horribly booked.

While Flair did take the pinfall during the triple threat match for the WWE Women’s Championship, Charlotte was dominant throughout the entire contest, shrugging off the vast majority of offense, sometimes even tandem attacks from Asuka and Iyo Sky. Both women bounced off Flair like ping-pong balls at various points. And fans were… surprisingly subdued for a lot of her offense.

Flair even got a visual submission from Asuka that the referee missed, just in case fans thought for a minute that she was vulnerable. Expect them to parlay that into another title shot for the Queen.

None of this is to say that Charlotte shouldn’t be booked strongly, but she shrugged off debilitating mist in less than five minutes and dominated large parts of the match, overwhelming Asuka and Iyo individually and even simultaneously. She by far looked like the strongest person in the bout despite not being the champ, and one that ostensibly could be turning babyface in the near future.

It's not like Flair is in danger of being thought of as an inferior wrestler and needs to be kept strong.

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Contributor

Scott is a former journalist and longtime wrestling fan who was smart enough to abandon WCW during the Monday Night Wars the same time as the Radicalz. He fondly remembers watching WrestleMania III, IV, V and VI and Saturday Night's Main Event, came back to wrestling during the Attitude Era, and has been a consumer of sports entertainment since then. He's written for WhatCulture for more than a decade, establishing the Ups and Downs articles for WWE Raw and WWE PPVs/PLEs and composing pieces on a variety of topics.