Rhea Ripley praises the recently released Tegan Nox.
The on-screen connection between Tegan Nox and current Raw Women’s Champion Rhea Ripley dates back to the 2018 Mae Young Classic when Nox and Ripley met in the tournament. Nox went for a suicide dive and suffered multiple injuries to her knee and it was the second of her three ACL tears.
Nox was released on Thursday after spending five years with WWE. After the news was made public, Rhea tweeted out that Tegan saved her job more than once. talkSPORT caught up with Ripley and asked her to elaborate. Rhea shared that there was a time when her name was on the cut list and it was passed along to Tegan that Rhea’s name was on that list. They had a match at the Performance Center in front of their peers and Tegan made Rhea look like a star.
Tegan is someone I hold very, very dear to my heart. I know that I might have been a bit harsh on social media after the whole injury in the Mae Young Classic, but that whole time that I was posting those, I really did feel very bad because she really did help me through a lot. Tegan, she doesn’t understand how much I appreciate her and what she’s done for me. But there was a time at the Performance Center where my name was on the list to get fired and I’d only been there for a year. I don’t know why my name was on the list, I guess people just didn’t like me at the time. It is what it is – I changed their mind! But I was on the chopping block and I had a PC live match in front of all our peers and it was against Tegan. One of the guys found out I was on that list and he told her – he didn’t tell me because he knew I’d freak out – but he told her and was like, ‘Look, you’ve got to make Rhea look good because this might be her last match here otherwise.’ And that’s exactly what she did. Even though it was in front of our peers – and that’s the most terrifying time to have a match – she made me look like an absolute star. She took everything of mine and made me look so incredible that it got my name taken off that list. And that was just one of the times!
Last year, Nox confirmed that she was scheduled to go to the finals of the 2018 Mae Young Classic. The tourney finals took place at the Evolution pay-per-view where Toni Storm scored the win over Io Shirai.
