Charlotte Flair addresses Divas championship controversy during interview

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WWE retired the Divas championship in 2016, finally moving on from referring to its women’s roster as “Divas” and ushering in a new age for the division. It would come to be known as the women’s revolution, which, yes, was largely a marketing term but there were legitimate changes within the company regarding how the women were presented. The “Divas” era was less about women being legitimately talented wrestlers and more about presenting them as models and reality TV stars. They rarely got time for their matches, and most certainly weren’t getting anywhere near the level of respect as the men’s division. Getting rid of the Divas championship was a symbolic push into the new era, where women would eventually headline WrestleMania and get an entire premium live event all to themselves. Despite all this, Charlotte Flair, who helped usher in the new era, doesn’t get why the hold Divas title was controversial at all. In a conversation with Ring The Belle, she had this to say about it: “No, I hear you say that, and I’ve heard that before, but for me it was like the one title that I felt like owned me and that I didn’t own. But I was also, as an athlete, so proud to hold that title, to hold the Divas Championship and feel like a diva, when at my core I was an athlete, and realizing that you could be both at the same time. And then when I retired it, I took a lot of pride because you have to look at the women before me. And had I not retired the Divas Championship and ended Nikki Bella’s longest-reigning Divas Championship reign, it was like where would I be today? So it was all part of the history. But there was never for a second that I didn’t… I never understood the controversy in it. Like, just because it had a butterfly? Well, I’m still a badass, and I wear butterflies all the time.” You could certainly argue with enough work Flair, and the many other talented women on the roster, could have driven that image as a positive but it seems unlikely to me. There was far too much baggage there, too much history of women being treated lesser. They needed to be put at the same level as the men, and that’s what happened. The title changing was symbolic, yes, but it was effective in getting the message across. Agree or disagree?