WWE Superstar and current WWE Women’s World Champion Rhea Ripley was recently spotted at a ‘Footy’ event in Australia alongside her real-life boyfriend and AEW superstar Buddy Matthews.
This moment took place a few days after Rhea Ripley was announced to have been injured by the hands of the returning Nia Jax. This “injury” and return caused havoc among the fans, as Nia Jax has had a reputation for being an unsafe worker in the ring.
“The irresistible force” Nia Jax has injured some of the best talents that the WWE locker room has to offer. From Charlotte Flair to Becky Lynch to even R-Truth, Nia Jax has injured more people than she has won championships. Seeing the top woman on the raw roster get injured was something no one wished would happen. Although the fans believed that the injury was legit, the video of Rhea Ripley hanging out with her real-life boyfriend Buddy Matthews at a Footy event started to circulate around the Internet, which made fans question the legitimacy of the injury.
Even if the injury was not 100% legit, it might just be that Rhea wanted some time off from TV as she has been showing up to work alongside “The Judgement Day” week after week and day after day for over a year now so she is bound to be exhausted. This rare appearance outside of the squared circle gave fans a glimpse into her and her fiancé’s personal life and we got to see a side of Rhea we don’t usually see on the camera.
Keep Exploring: “Cuz I’m a black man,” 33-year-old Superstar squashes stories about facing heat in WWE for standing up for B-Fab
Rhea Ripley’s fantastic evolution
In 2013, Demi Bennett started her career in Riot City Wrestling in Australia, where she spent several years in the promotion. Demi signed with the WWE in 2017 under the new name ‘Rhea Ripley’ and made her NXT debut in October of the same year. After taking part in the ‘Mae Young Classic’ and dominating most of the field but coming up short in the semi-finals against the current WWE Women’s Championship, Iyo Sky (FKA Iyo Shirai). Shortly after that classic encounter, Rhea was shifted to the then-premiering NXT UK. There she would go on to become the NXT UK Women’s Champion after defeating Toni Storm and would hold it for 139 days.
Rhea Ripley made her main roster debut in 2020 in the pandemic era as a babyface, and by 2021 She had won both the WWE Womens and the WWE Womens Tag Team Championships. Over time people started to grow tired of the bland and basic character Rhea had at the time, and a major character change was needed. That character shift came with “The Judgement Day”.
After aligning herself with Edge and Damian Priest, Rhea officially turned heel and presented a new gimmick as the “Mami” of WWE. Alongside Finn Balor, Damian Priest And Dominik Mysterio, Ripley has been doing the best work of her career so far and has even won the WWE Women’s World Championship at WrestleMania 39 by defeating Charlotte Flair. From her days as a rookie in NXT UK to dominating the WWE alongside ‘The Judgement Day’, Rhea has come a long way from her days in her RCW, and her character work should definitely be admired.
In case you missed it:
