WWE's Rhea Ripley Talks Receiving Opportunities Due To Injuries & Crowd Reactions

As the saying goes, plans are always subject to change in WWE. In Rhea Ripley's case, two major changes previously worked in her favor, specifically by taking her career to new levels. During a recent appearance on "Insight With Chris Van Vliet," Ripley reflected on these pivotal moments, the first of which came about under some rather unfortunate circumstances.

Amidst the 2018 Mae Young Classic, Ripley faced Tegan Nox in the quarterfinals, with Nox slated to advance to the next round against IYO SKY (then known as Io Shirai). Due to a mid-match injury to her knee and tibia, however, Nox was deemed unable to continue. As a result, the referee awarded the victory to Ripley, who went on to wrestle SKY instead.

"[IYO] didn't really speak English at that time either. It was very, very rough. We had 20 minutes to put a 15-minute match together and it was just alright, plan something," Ripley said. "I'm still trying to get over this really traumatic situation which I was just a part of. I still had Tegan's screams in the back of my head and just the noises that were coming out of her ... It's just like a really specific noise that a human makes when they're in literal pain. But then going out there and putting on such a good match with IYO, first time ever touching, having Hunter come out and raise my hand on the stage, it was just like I feel like they're noticing now."

Prior to her impromptu match against SKY, Ripley noted that WWE didn't use her on "WWE NXT" programming, though she did make rounds on the brand's untelevised live events. In general, Ripley felt like she didn't belong amongst the developmental roster, as many of her cohorts picked on her. After seeing her performance against SKY and a nod of approval from Paul "Triple H" Levesque, however, she felt more included and set on an upward track.

That upward track led Ripley to "WWE NXT UK," and eventually, back to the "NXT" brand, where she dethroned Shayna Baszler for the NXT Women's Championship in December 2019. According to Ripley, though, that title win almost didn't happen.

"That was when we were filming at Full Sail [University]. We're filming four weeks in a row, so it was like alright, we're here all day. We're going to be filming four shows, so everything's already pre-planned. I was supposed to wrestle Shayna and I was supposed to lose. I wasn't supposed to win," Ripley said.

"It was supposed to be a throwaway 'Rhea is here, she lost to the champion, now we probably don't know what to do with her' [situation], but because I got such a massive reaction from the Full Sail crowd, Sara Amato literally ran into the locker room. She's like 'We have to change the ending of the match. Rhea can't lose.' We're going to do a DQ because that's all we can really think of right now to continue it. So it was a DQ finish. I think I hit her with a chair and then I sat on the chair and told her to come back in my ring because I wanted to continue fighting. Then it trickled down and we had the match with the championship. The rest is really much history."

Ripley's reign as NXT Women's Champion spanned a recognized length of 108 days, with a televised title defense against Bianca Belair in addition to live event-based ones against Baszler, Raquel Rodriguez, and Chelsea Green. "The Queen" Charlotte Flair  unseated Ripley at WrestleMania 36, though "The Eradicator" later scored revenge by beating her for the WWE SmackDown Women's Championship three years later.

If you use any of the quotes in this article, please credit "Insight With Chris Van Vliet" with a h/t to Wrestling Inc. for the transcription.