Real Reason Charlotte Pulled From WrestleMania? | WrestleTalk News

If you’ve been out of the loop for the last few days, Andrade and Charlotte Flair have been the focus of wrestling news lately – with Andrade being granted his release from WWE this past Sunday, and Charlotte mysteriously disappearing from our TV screens, and more interestingly, the WrestleMania advertising when she had previously been plastered all over it.

There was speculation online that the two events were actually linked, with Charlotte’s absence being because of tension with WWE over her fiancé’s release. Reputable sources like Sean Ross Sapp denied this was true, however, and now Charlotte herself has clarified her situation on Twitter, saying:

“I know everyone has been wondering where I have been. I tested positive for COVID and have been home resting. Thank you everyone for your love.”

This is interesting for several reasons. Firstly, there were reports from Dave Meltzer that WWE was trying to keep the situation with Charlotte quiet, with his sources “avoiding [him] on that one”. And secondly, Charlotte publicly addressing it seems to fly in the face of WWE’s wishes of wrestlers keeping their positive COVID tests private, with AJ Styles reportedly having heat last summer for mentioning that he tested positive on his Twitch stream, and Renee Young confirmed she did have heat with the company when she announced her positive test.

Andrade also spoke of Flair’s situation on Twitter, saying that it would be “4 more days, and you clear”, meaning that she should in theory be back in time for WrestleMania. But you would’ve thought that WWE would’ve known this and not removed her from the posters if this was the case. In fairness she could always come back and insert herself into the Raw Women’s Title match and make it a Triple Threat. You know, the classic Charlotte move.

On a more serious note, we here at WrestleTalk wish a speedy recovery for Charlotte Flair.

Meanwhile, after publicly confirming that he’d asked for his release last week, Andrade was officially released from his WWE contract shortly after Fastlane finished. This of course sparked a lot of conversation between fans about what’s next for Andrade, and as it turns out we won’t have to wait too long.

According to a report from Dave Meltzer, “Sources close to the situation confirm that Andrade’s release from WWE does not include a 90-day non-compete, so he would be able to start taking dates immediately.”

Why Andrade is not subject to this contractual obligation that pretty much every other wrestler is subject to is unclear, but check out wrestletalk.com for more information as this story develops.

Scrapped Retribution Plans

And it wasn’t just Andrade getting released that happened on Sunday, as at Fastlane we also saw the breakup of Retribution. I think. Reckoning and Slapjack walked out on their leader Mustafa Ali, while Mace and T-Bar hit him with a double chokeslam on him. However there was no follow up to this on Raw, so… uhh.. Yeah I think they’re broken up? And according to WrestlingInc, the break-up wasn’t actually supposed to happen at Fastlane, but was initially intended for WrestleMania.

As previously reported, Ali has been working with a torn PCL since December. And despite being told he needed surgery following the Royal Rumble, “the idea that had been pitched to the group was that if Ali was willing to work through the injury and keep the group going for the time being, there would be some big blow-off with Retribution disbanding at WrestleMania 37.”

So thinking he’d get his big Mania moment, Ali agreed. And then they did at Fastlane instead. On the Kick Off show. Cheers Ali, thanks for putting your body through so much stress in order to give this group a shred of a story hook. Here’s a Fastlane angle on the Kick Off show that no one will remember. This company.

Now you might have noticed that I am not in fact Mr. Davis. He’s off this week preparing for our Hair vs. Points match at WrestleJamia that was made official on yesterday’s WrestleTalk Podcast review of Fastlane. And while Mr. Davis thinks it was me that blew him… up, I intend to prove my innocence. And I will do that by finding the son of a botch that blew up Mr. Davis. In fact, I’ve got my next suspect on the phone.

Andy Datson, did you blow up Mr. Davis? 

Oh. Anyway, it’s time for a review of the “oh crap there’s only 19 days until WrestleMania we’d better book so matches” edition of Monday Night Raw…. in about 5 minutes.

WWE Raw Review

Raw opened with a rematch of last week’s main event where Bobby Lashley defeated Sheamus in another really good match. Unlike last week, however, the rest of The Hurt Business came out to ringside to cause some distractions which neither Lashley or MVP liked. They chewed out Cedric Alexander and Shelton Benjamin backstage, which led to them challenging Drew McIntyre to a handicap match later in the show, where if they lost they would be banned from ringside at WrestleMania, even though it appears that neither Lashley or MVP actually wanted them at ringside. Anyway they lost that match, and Lashley offered up the chance at a WWE Championship to the Catering Crew if they take out Drew before Mania. 

This all felt a bit… muddled. I’m not into the idea of Hurt Business breaking up or having in-fighting when they’ve consistently been one of the best acts on Raw, and I’d much rather them be a united front going against McIntyre at Mania. I thought there might be something in Drew saving Sheamus from a beatdown after his match, but then he seemingly started a Mania program with Matt Riddle over the United States Championship later in the show. BUT, when Drew and Bobby went face-to-face, I did get a pang of excitement about the Mania match. All of the elements for this to be good are there, I’m just now sure they’re all in the right place at the moment.

Speaking all of the elements being there but not in the right place!

Charlotte Flair returned to WWE in December and won the Women’s Tag Team Championships with her good friend Asuka – remember that? – which was done to seemingly set up a Mania feud between the two. But then WWE decided to go with Lacey Evans, with her set up to win the Raw Women’s Championship from Asuka at Elimination Chamber before she announced she was pregnant. So then they want back to the plan of Flair vs. Asuka, but with her announcement of Flair testing positive for COVID, plans have changed again. The problem is, WWE have spent the last few months building Evans and Flair at the detriment of the rest of the division. Asuka hasn’t had a proper feud or storyline since Banks and Bayley last Summer, so to their enormous credit, WWE hit the reset button and tried to make a new star out of Peyton Royce this week, who hasn’t won a singles match on Raw since last September.

Asuka and Royce had a great match, which really put over the former IIconic as a potential challenger for her in the future with a bit more build. 

The other big reset button was Rhea Ripley, after rumblings she wasn’t actually going to debut on Raw until after Mania. But the Flair situation fast-forwarded those plans for her to debut here. And what was her big story? She just challenged Asuka to a match and Asuka accepted. Cool story, bro. I’m glad that Rhea has debuted and is going straight into the main event picture, but was this really the best thing they could come up with? Just a brief chat and a match has been made official? There was more intrigue in the Shayna Baszler angle last week, but they’ve just moved onto something else.

Speaking of plans changing! Miz also challenged Bad Bunny to a match at Mania, beat Jeff Hardy quickly, and then Bad Bunny accepted. So despite reports that it would be Miz and Morrison vs. Bad Bunny and Damien Priest in a tag match to get Priest over, it’s now just a singles match to get Bad Bunny over. Huh.

Thankfully, this show was filled with really good wrestling – and we got more of that next.

AJ Styles and Kofi Kingston had a great match to build to their WrestleMania tag team program. It was filled with counters and counter-counters and just all-round good wrestling. AJ had the match won, but Xavier Woods distracted him with the trombone to allow Kofi to pick up the win. I wish more had been made of – that outside of the gauntlet match – this was AJ’s first pinfall loss since he moved to Raw in October, which was actually Styles’ gimmick for a bit, but the match was really good and I am into this feud.

What I’m less into is Mandy Rose and Dana Brooke once again failing to capture the Women’s Tag Team Championships from Nia Jax and Shayna Baszler. They failed in November, failed again in December, failed again in January and here again in March. How could you possibly care about their journey? Not helped by Lana and Naomi – who lost to Jax and Baszler in less than 10 minutes a few weeks ago – challenged the champs to yet another match. And to make matters worse, bloody Reginald was out there to do some flips. He does flips, you guys. The Women’s Tag Team scene is just spinning its wheels at the moment, and Reginald isn’t going to help that.

Shane McMahon debuted his new Midcard of Evil of Elias and Jackson Ryker on Raw to essentially repeat that angle from Fastlane. Braun quickly beat Elias with the running powerslam and his constantly erect nipples and then challenged Shane to a match for Mania, which Shane accepted. The only thing notable about this – other than the match being announced of course – is that WWE have added train sound effects when Braun runs around the ring. Like, proper choo choo train sounds. It’s very silly, and I don’t choo choo choose this to be a recurring gimmick.

And the main event of the show was reserved for the spooky follow up to The Fiend’s crispy return at Fastlane, with Randy Orton coming out to apparently summon him. Even though it was Bliss that brought him out in the end. Orton said that it only feels like yesterday that he burnt the Fiend alive – I watch this show week to week, Randy, I can tell you it doesn’t. He poured some more gas onto the Fiend as he just stood there, hit an RKO on him, and then Fiend popped up and hit Sister Abigail as Alexa Bliss pointed at the WrestleMania sign. They made the match official, but didn’t announce a Firefly Funhouse stip. Mr. Davis has said his peace on this, and I feel like I have on the WrestleTalk Podcast. It’s just not for me. All 3 of them are doing good character work, but the story isn’t connecting with me. Even if Fiend looks like a cross between Chucky at the end of Child’s Play, and Chucky at the end of Child’s Play 3, which I think is cool.

So that was this week’s Raw in about 5 minutes, what did you think of the show? Let me know in the comments down below.

This was a panic addition of Raw as we’re now just under 3 weeks away from Mania and very little has been built. Some of the women’s division rebuilding was good, the Drew vs. Bobby stuff was mostly good, and AJ vs. Kofi was a lot of fun. But there was also a lot of “meh” on the show? So I guess this week’s Raw is a solid 3/5 avRAWge.

What are your thoughts on the above story? Let us know in the comments on Twitter or Facebook.

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