Charlotte Flair to shock everyone & do what she did 5 years ago after her Royal Rumble win? Exploring the possibility

Charlotte Flair returned to WWE for the first time since December 2023, following a serious knee injury that sidelined her for 13 months. The Queen participated in the 2025 Women's Royal Rumble Match and won it, getting a guaranteed title shot at The Grandest Stage of Them All.

This is the second time in five years that the WWE legend has won the Rumble Match, having done so previously in 2020. At that time, she skipped the opportunity to challenge then-RAW Women's Champion Becky Lynch or SmackDown Women's Champion Bayley. Instead, she moved to NXT and challenged the then NXT Women's Champion Rhea Ripley for a match at WrestleMania 36.

Fast forward to today, The Queen could do the same thing. She is expected to challenge Tiffany Stratton for the Women's Championship, but instead, she might move to RAW on Netflix to reignite her feud with The Eradicator and challenge her for a title match for the Women's World Championship at WrestleMania 41.

Should this happen, it will be the third time that Charlotte Flair and Ripley will collide at The Showcase of the Immortals, after WrestleMania 36 (2020) and WrestleMania 39 (2023).

Still, this move remains surprising, considering that Charlotte Flair is expected to challenge Tiffany Stratton for the Women's Championship.

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Rhea Ripley once said that her WrestleMania 36 loss to Charlotte Flair affected her confidence

In 2020, Charlotte Flair dethroned Rhea Ripley and became the NXT Women's Champion, starting her feud with The Eradicator.

Rhea Ripley once spoke with WWE ring announcer Lilian Garcia on Chasing Glory and shared how her loss to The Queen impacted her confidence for a time.

"It did feel like (the wind was taken out). I felt like I went through a stage where I was losing confidence in myself because I wasn't portrayed the same way. Even now, I'm still slowly building myself back up from it. My confidence was tainted a little, which sucks because I try to keep it up and do my best all the time. I don't know if it was something in my head that wasn't getting the picture, I just got a little bit lost after that. Now, I feel like I'm getting back on track. Building myself back up has been hard, it's been difficult, but I've found my track now and I'm getting back on it," Rhea Ripley said back in November 2020. [H/T Fightful]

Fast forward to today, she has become a megastar and is considered one of the top female stars, if not the top one, in WWE.