The Story So Far: IYO SKY Vs. Rhea Ripley At WWE Evolution 2025

Rhea Ripley and IYO SKY will clash for the WWE Women's World Championship at Evolution 2025, and while this is far from the first time Ripley and SKY have shared a ring, their upcoming match in Atlanta is widely expected to be another stunning entry in their catalogue of contests. Starting with their tenures in "WWE NXT," "The Eradicator" and "The Genius of the Sky" have eight years' worth of history preceding Saturday's premium live event; from the Mae Young Classic semifinals to WrestleMania 41 and beyond, this is the story so far.

Ripley and SKY first competed in a WWE ring in 2018, when SKY (then named Io Shirai) defeated Ripley in the Mae Young Classic tournament semifinals — she would go on to lose to Toni Storm in the MYC finals at the first Evolution event. While 2019 saw SKY and Ripley debut in the women's Royal Rumble, face off in women's WarGames, and team up to take down the main roster at Survivor Series, they wouldn't meet again in singles action until 2020, when their second-ever televised singles match ended in a no contest when NXT Women's Champion Charlotte Flair attacked them both. That set up a triple threat for the title at NXT Takeover: In Your House, a match that appeared to be over when Flair bridged Ripley into the Figure 8 submission, only for SKY to hit Ripley with a moonsault off the top rope and pin her to win the championship.

Later in 2020, SKY successfully defended her title against Ripley in a 22-minute singles classic on "NXT" TV; by that time the two had grown a mutual respect for one another, and they closed the year by teaming up for the 2020 women's WarGames match in a losing effort. They were separated after that as Ripley was called up to the main roster early in 2021, while SKY remained in "NXT" until SummerSlam 2022; strangely, the next time they shared the ring was in another WarGames match, two full years after the last one, with SKY and Ripley again teaming together and again losing. They finally hit the WarGames jackpot in 2024, when for the first time, they were on the same team and won.

In March 2025, during the build-up to WrestleMania 41, SKY and Ripley wrestled their first singles match in more than four years. Having reclaimed her Women's World Championship from Liv Morgan on "WWE Raw's" Netflix debut, Ripley defended the title against SKY on the March 3 episode of "Raw." In a shocking turn of events, SKY ended "The Eradicator's" second WWE Women's World Championship reign after Bianca Belair's ringside presence distracted the champion; a subsequent rematch with Belair as special guest referee ended in a double disqualification when the three women couldn't keep their conflict at bay. The feud culminated in a triple threat match at WrestleMania 41, where SKY retained her title by pinning Belair.

After SKY's WrestleMania 41 win, she and Ripley went their separate ways, only sharing a ring once again on the May 12 episode of "Raw," where they teamed against main roster newcomers Giulia and Roxanne Perez. As SKY's championship reign continued, Ripley tried to claw her way back to the title contention scene through the 2025 Women's Money in the Bank ladder match and the Queen of the Ring tournament; however, she failed to secure the briefcase and was knocked out of QOTR contention early thanks to the meddling of The Judgment Day's Raquel Rodriguez. Finally, after taking care of Rodriguez at Night of Champions, Ripley arrived on the June 30 episode of "Raw" intent on declaring her desire for a championship match.

As it turned out, she wouldn't need to. Before Ripley could make her case to the crowd, SKY emerged onto the entrance ramp, saying she'd been given the power to choose her challenger for Evolution 2025. SKY offered Ripley a title opportunity in Atlanta, claiming that she wanted to face "the best," and that Ripley was her means of doing so. Ripley accepted respectfully, but promised to withhold nothing in her quest to reclaim gold. And she shouldn't — the reigning champion is the only demon Ripley has yet to vanquish, having proven unable to beat her in seven previous meetings. Will July 13 be the day "The Genius of the Sky" finally falls to "The Nightmare?"