The former Raw Women’s Champion gives her pick for who she’d like to join Judgment Day.
In three weeks, Rhea Ripley will be competing at WrestleMania 39 to challenge Charlotte Flair for the SmackDown Women’s Championship. This is going to be her first televised title opportunity since April 2022.
At the 2022 Money in the Bank event, Ripley was supposed to challenge Bianca Belair for the Raw Women’s Championship but was sidelined due to what she described as ‘brain/teeth’ injuries. She was featured on-screen in a managerial role for The Judgment Day but did not make her in-ring return until October of that year.
Ripley was the featured guest for episode #94 of WWE Die Woche and opened up about that period of time she was not able to compete and added that she did enjoy the manager role.
It was definitely strange (being out of action), especially because at that time, I was go, go, go. I was on TV, I was on the live events, I was doing absolutely everything, my schedule was extremely busy and to have that sort of cut down to just TVs and I missed a couple in between. I missed like two weeks I think it was and then I came back and maybe it was months. Maybe it went faster than I realized (she laughed). But, then I finally came back and I started doing more manager-style stuff which I was happy about because it means I was still on TV, I was still getting to go to work and getting to do the one thing that I love and that is getting to perform in front of everyone for WWE and I slowly got more and more into it. I got to beat up some of the guys and do my thing. So I feel like I only had that slight little bit of time off that sort of went quickly in a way but, the whole injury in itself went by really, really fast for me. Faster than I could have anticipated because by the time I had my match in NXT against Roxanne (Perez), I felt like not much time had passed at all.
The Judgment Day have been engaged in a back and forth feud with Edge and Beth Phoenix for months. Ripley and Finn Balor lost to Phoenix and Edge at Elimination Chamber.
Ripley stated that if she is to win the SmackDown Women’s Title at WrestleMania, she would like to defend the championship against Beth.
Especially, because it is the SmackDown women’s roster as well and I haven’t faced a lot of them in a long time if not ever. So there’s definitely a lot of names that I could think of but I mean, I would love to defend it against Beth (Phoenix), I would love to have a singles match against her. She got a little taste of what I’m capable of in the tag team match. Unfortunately, Finn (Balor) and I didn’t conquer but, we’re still here, we’re still fighting to see another day so I would love to face Beth in a singles match but, if not her, then I would say Raquel Rodriguez.
When it comes to the idea of adding a member to The Judgment Day, one name came to mind for Rhea and that is her former tag partner, Liv Morgan. She thinks Morgan would realize her true potential as a part of the group.
You know, someone that I used to hold very, very close to my heart, someone that I knew has it in them to be a part of The Judgment Day but just refuses to accept it, someone that is a little bit crazy but is very, very, resilient, someone that I know could be capable of so much more is Liv Morgan. My former tag team partner Liv Morgan. I think that she would suit The Judgment Day extremely well and I think that if she decided to join us, we could take her to the next level and show her-her true potential.
Rhea has a new theme song that Chris Motionless did the vocals for. She is no longer using Ash Costello’s ‘Brutality’ theme. She enjoyed her old song but felt it was time for a change.
I was actually the reason that Chris (Motionless) sang my (new WWE theme) song. When I joined The Judgment Day, I messaged Chris and I was like, ‘If I could get WWE to allow it, would you be down to sing my song and make me a new one?’ And he was like, ‘Absolutely. If you can make that happen, that’s incredible’ so I messaged the music guys and I was like, ‘Yo, I think I need a new song since I had just joined Judgment Day. I want something a little more heavier, edgy, something different and I want Chris Motionless to sing it’ and they were like, ‘Alright. Well we’ll message him’ and I was like, ‘I already have and he said he’s down’ so I got them together and yeah, now I’ve got Chris singing my song and it’s the most amazing thing ever. I love Ash Costello and I love my old song but, I think it was time for that little change. Just something to ramp it up a little bit and yeah, I love it.
This year’s WrestleMania is going to be the fourth WrestleMania in a row that Rhea competes for a championship on.
If the quotes in this article are used, please credit WWE Die Woche with an H/T to POST Wrestling for the transcriptions.
