10 Things WWE Wants You To Forget About Rhea Ripley

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.