Reason Charlotte Flair Is Feuding With WWE NXT Champion Rhea Ripley Revealed

At the Royal Rumble, Charlotte Flair punched her ticket to WrestleMania 36 as she outlasted 29 other Superstars to win the Women's Royal Rumble match. While Flair has yet to choose an opponent,

to set a precedent and go one on one with Rhea Ripley for the NXT Championship at The Showcase Of The Immortals.

This seemed like an odd choice to many as Superstars have traditionally chosen to challenge for one of the main roster's Women's Championships instead.

It seems the Wednesday Night Wars are behind Flair's decision, as

that WWE chose to have Charlotte feud with Ripley because the company want to build up the black and gold brand's ratings on Wednesday nights to compete with AEW: Dynamite.

The company thought they had turned a corner after winning the ratings war in the build-up to Survivor Series and remained competitive afterwards. However, since AEW returned from their Christmas break on January 1, they have achieved decisive victories over NXT every week, which "blindsided" WWE.

Meltzer said: "The whole idea is to build up NXT's ratings with Charlotte Flair. They didn’t feel like waiting, they got blindsided by the January ratings. They were not expecting that. They thought that the corner had been turned."