10 Things WWE Wants You To Forget About Rhea Ripley
When 'Nightmare' wasn't just a nickname, nor the best way to describe WWE's booking.
"What happened last week on Monday Night Raw" isn't typically one of the entries in a list like this, but 'The Nightmare' is, as of writing, having a run that regrettably lives up to her nickname.
With the exception of her actually becoming Raw Women's Champion at WrestleMania, Rhea Ripley's call-up to the main roster from NXT has been a throwback to how things often went for company starlets before the ill-fated Wednesday Night War.
The song was typically the same - wrestlers would peak on the black-and-gold brand, leave on high and/or in a blaze of glory putting over the next big prospect, and arrive on Raw or SmackDown almost fully formed in their character thanks to years of development on the third brand. Then, Vince McMahon wouldn't really get them, and all of the above got fed into a chipper so he could make a warped new toy from the remains.
In news as pleasing for the NXT process as it must be daunting for talent, all of this is happening again. Karrion Kross taped a main event match with none of his dazzling entrance on display, and his partner Scarlett was kept separate from him entirely during her own tryout. Bronson Reed shockingly lost the North American title ahead of a presumed call-up too, despite a lack of clear and obvious direction for how he might be used on Monday Nights.
And speaking of that...
10. The Robert Stone Brand Feud
It could be reasonably argued that Rhea Ripley (and NXT itself) needed a bit of light relief in the summer of 2020, but a middling rivalry with comedy heels The Robert Stone Brand has aged about as well as the cheap booze he vomited up a week after trying to "sign" her to his stable.
Paid off at July's Great American Bash - itself a fairly transparent attempt to steal a couple of viewership victories away from All Elite Wrestling's offerings - Ripley destroyed Stone and Aliyah with relative ease despite the handicap stipulation. But the point of all of it was lost somewhere before then anyway. None of this served as effective rehabilitation for the former titleholder.
WWE had a created a problem NXT couldn't fix when 'The Nightmare' lost her NXT Women's Championship to Charlotte Flair at WrestleMania 36 (more on that later), and the broad gag-heavy shtick stuff she was stuck doing in its aftermath made her look more lost than ever. Far from looking like a step back in the right direction, this period did as much to define the character's failings at a higher level as the original losses themselves.