10 Things WWE Wants You To Forget About Rhea Ripley
9. Her 2019 NXT Push Wasn't Actually The Plan
Rhea Ripley's 2019 call-up was an unmitigated success.
She arrived in the summer as somebody unintimidated by terrifying and dominant NXT Champion Shayna Baszler, took her to the limit in her first match, became her physical and mental equal on television in the months that followed, shone in the first ever Women's WarGames in the TakeOver of the same name, and defeated her in the main event of the only edition of the black-and-gold brand to ever claim a viewership and demo ratings win over AEW Dynamite.
End-to-end, the whole thing felt like a creative and strategic triumph. In reality, it was rooted in a couple of happy accidents.
Per Ripley herself during a conversation on the Wrestling Friends podcast with Flash Morgan Webster, Ripley was destined for defeat before agents picked up the extra energy in their initial showdown. From there, Baszler and others lavished praise upon the newcomer from her work on house shows, and plans were changed to have Ripley see through her campaign with the biggest possible victory at the end. It was realistically the last star-making run on the brand before things on the show started to fall apart...