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tarnished
fdfdfdfddfdfdfdfdfkjfhaelhfakwjefhskjfasdhvbffgxdfsdmdmdmdfdff; December 8th, 2023.
Providence, Rhode Island.
The moment that her legs started wiggling on the top rope, she knew something wasn’t right. Her momentum was already floating her forward and her leg twisted itself into the top rope as she tumbled her way down to the ring.
It was terrible, what had just happened. She actually couldn’t believe it. First, her moonsault didn’t go as planned, and now this? The immense pain that she was in right now was almost more than she could bear. Charles Robinson had quickly come to her rescue, asking her if she was okay to continue. Of course, she was. She wasn’t going to let something like a tweaked knee get in the way of finishing her match.
Except.. when she kicked out of Asuka’s pin and tried to stand up on her own, she knew something wasn’t right. She could barely put her weight on it. It hurt like a bitch and she still had a whole match ahead of her. She didn’t know how she was going to do it. Move after move, it seemed to everyone else like she was just assaulting her leg. Doing more and more damage to it as minutes ticked by. It was the referee who decided to put a stop to it, not Charlotte. He did a quick count and ended it to spare any further injury that she was willing to put herself through.
It must have been the adrenaline that was coursing through her during the match, because by the time it was over and everyone was leaving the ring to set up for the next match she was barely able to get up into a sitting position. She scooted around on the mat, trying to muster up enough courage and strength to stand up, but it wasn’t working.
“My knee…” she gasped out, finally coming to terms that something was terribly wrong. This wasn’t something that she could shake off like nothing happened. She started to get scared. What was happening? Why couldn’t she just stand up? “My knee… oh sh*t…” she whined out, the pain on her face evident now that the world was slowly closing in on her. She tried to get up again, but Charles Robinson, again, wasn’t going to let her further injure herself with her larger-than-life ego. He called for backup because it was clear that Charlotte wasn’t going to be able to walk out of the ring by herself and she had too much muscle on her body for him to solely help her backstage.
It took two people on either side of her to help her to her feet. Standing at her full 5’10” height, with her arms hanging over her two supporters, she tried to hobble a few steps toward the ropes. The pain in her knee twisted her face up, but she swore she wasn’t going to cry. Charlotte Flair didn’t cry in front of people. That’s not what she was bred and born to do. She was tough and indestructible. She didn’t get injured. She was born for this.
In all of her pain, as she was helped out of the ring and up the ramp, she had totally forgotten about her Dad. She was going to have to face him at the end of all this. Hearing him fire questions at her wasn’t something that she was in a mindset to handle right now.
What happened?
What were you thinking?
This isn’t like you.
Where was your ring awareness?
You’re a third-generation superstar.
Injuries don’t happen when you’re genetically superior.. yet here she was, hobbling backstage because she wasn’t able to walk on her own. It was extremely embarrassing and bruised her ego to have people watching and asking her if she was okay and if she needed help. She wanted to scream that she was fine.. to get out of her face. But she had to face the truth, there was no way she was getting out of this arena on her own, much less survive the doctor’s analysis and the weeks to come after this.
She was going to have to do something that she’d never done; she was going to have to rely on the support of other people to keep her head above water.
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