Charlotte Flair recently spoke about the injury that kept her away from WWE for more than a year.
In December 2023, Flair tore her ACL during a match against Asuka on WWE SmackDown. The injury forced the 14-time world champion to miss 13 months of action. She stayed out for all of 2024. Flair returned at the WWE Women’s Royal Rumble in 2025.
Speaking with Bloomberg Talks, Flair said she believes her mental state at the time may have played a role in the injury. “I definitely think when I hurt my knee, I tore my ACL, I don’t think I was in the right state of mind. Meaning whether it was imposter syndrome, that dialogue that how we talk to ourselves, that inner self talk, I feel like I was in a very negative space and not opening up about it.”
She explained that pressure and anxiety were affecting her at the time, “The anxiety of being a woman that’s approaching 40, what that looks like, the demands. And I want to be able to say I’m a woman and what I want more of is time. All that pressure adding up, I feel like the reason I hurt my knee is because I wasn’t all there performing.”
Flair also said the injury changed how she looks at herself. “And for someone who has always looked at myself as the iron woman, when my knee took me out, I was like, all I viewed myself was is a professional wrestler. Like that’s all I am, and that’s not all I am. I do have a voice and maybe this is the start of something bigger for me.”
She added that she now wants to speak more openly about these struggles. “I love being Charlotte, but taking Charlotte to the next level and making these conversations more accessible or not taboo for people in any kind of industry, I think is so important.” [H/T: WrestlePurists]
Read More: Charlotte Flair Reveals How Much Time She Has Left in WWE After Recent Injury
