Rhea Ripley recently reflected on her showing against IYO SKY and Bianca Belair at Wrestlemania 41.
While Ripley didn’t come out victorious in a triple threat match for the WWE Women’s World Championship, she left Allegiant Stadium with the pride of knowing she put on a match which many considered one of the weekend’s highlights.
Ripley recently told Nine.com.au’s Wide World of Sports about the experience, and specifically what it meant to put on such a well-received match alongside two other women she has such a long history with.
“I moved over here at 20 years old. These girls were pretty much my family,” Ripley said about Sky and Belair. “They’re like my sisters. They were the only ones that I saw every single day. Trained with them all the time. It was a very competitive nature, but a very loving nature at the same time. So to go out at Wrestlemania 41 and have such an awesome match where you know you had the crowd the entire time, and you were opening the show and they were loud and [you feel] that adrenaline rush. Honestly, all of us broke down in tears. I was so happy, so very happy. It was such a special moment. Even on the bus afterwards, I couldn’t come down from that high at all.
The triple threat match was Sky’s first-ever WrestleMania win, a victory she celebrated while her family was in attendance. Ripley felt it was important to see Sky have that moment.
“Seeing that video of Iyo’s family crying in the crowd, it was so special because I’ve had that moment, where I beat Charlotte and I looked over and my family’s crying in the crowd. Bianca’s had that moment where she’s beaten Sasha [Banks] or Becky [Lynch] and she’s looked over and seen her family in the crowd crying. Iyo hasn’t had that moment yet. So to see her have that moment captured and presented to everyone, it was a really special day.”
Ripley’s full interview with Wide World of Sports can be seen here.
