Stories of behind-the-scenes drama in the WrestleMania 41 feud between Women’s Royal Rumble winner Charlotte Flair and WWE Women’s champion Tiffany Stratton were sometimes more interesting than what was happening on-screen. The most interesting moments occurred when the backstage conflict snuck into the scripted one.
That made the program perfect fodder for WWE Unreal, the new reality series that dropped all five of its first season episodes on Netflix today (July 29).
Stratton & Flair’s story is told
in Unreal’s final episode — and if you want my quick spoiler-free review of Unreal*, its that while there are interesting moments in the first three episodes, its most compelling installments are the fourth, which focuses on John Cena’s heel turn at Elimination Chamber, and fifth, on WrestleMania itself.
What we’re shown of ‘Mania’s Women’s title feud (and like WrestleMania XL: Behind the Curtain and most reality programming, Unreal presents a WWE’s version of the behind-the-scenes story, not an unfiltered one) largely matches up with what we saw and heard about as it was happening.
It’s not covered in-depth, but the March 21 split-screen interview with Flair and Stratton seems to have been the inciting incident. Producer Michael P.S. Hayes says:
“[Charlotte] stepped on Tiffany in a way that wasn’t good for the story. And I think that put Tiffany on notice, and there were some real personal things that were said.”
That’s played over a scene in gorilla** from the April 4 SmackDown in Chicago where things got testy during an in-ring promo segment between Flair & Stratton. Head writer Ed Koksey is heard telling Chief Creative Officer Paul “Triple H” Levesque that Tiffany’s “0-3” jab in reference to Charlotte’s divorces was what sent made Flair “upset” and sent her “over the edge”, because “it obviously wasn’t written” in the script.
Triple H replied:
“I need Tiffany to understand that’s obviously not how we do this. So, she needs to go to Charlotte and apologize and they need to get on the same page.”
Triple H exigiu que Tiffany Stratton pedisse desculpas pessoalmente a Ashley, após ela ter saído do roteiro e atacado a vida real de Charlotte Flair.#WWEUnreal pic.twitter.com/F01E8ajgU9
— Women's Division Brasil (@PortalDivaBR) July 29, 2025
And apparently, they did. We see effusive reactions to Stratton’s successful defense at WrestleMania from Trips and producer TJ Wilson as both women came through the curtain after the match, and the pair sharing a hug before Flair says in a later moment:
“It was good. I think [Tiffany] has a super bright future. She’s a star. Yeah, I feel like where I am in my career... I hope that launches Tiffany into where she wants to go next. Cause someone did that for me one time — or a long time ago.”
We also see The Game tell her, “that’s how you put someone over”.
Both women and are in title matches this Saturday at SummerSlam. All episodes of WWE Unreal are available to stream on Netflix here.
* Which comes with the disclaimer that I have a VERY low tolerance for the reality television format, regardless of subject matter. If that structure doesn’t bother you or is your thing, you’ll probably like WWE Unreal more than I did.
** The most interesting parts of Unreal to me happened in gorilla, or involved an out-of-character interaction between performers.
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