10 Things WWE Wants You To Forget About Rhea Ripley
6. The NXT Wilderness Year
Even the best eras of WWE seem obsessed with testing their talents by seeing what exactly they can do beyond "just" wrestling. That's not to say 2020 NXT was anywhere near the best of anything, but having appeared to be the company's next breakout star as recently as the prior December, Ripley was badly floundering as a knockabout babyface in the aftermath of her loss to Charlotte Flair.
She never came all that close to reclaiming the gold from 'The Queen', before she was pinned in the triple threat that moved the title onto the next Champion Io Shirai. Rather than rebounding from that setback, she found herself trapped in a comedic summer series against Robert Stone and Aliyah that droned on and on despite her making light work of the two in a handicap match. Away from unimportant fluff, she lost matches that might have actually mattered against Dakota Kai and Toni Storm, failed to get her belt back from Shirai and was even on the losing end of a largely forgotten Capitol Wrestling Center WarGames match.
She put Raquel Rodriguez over in her farewell match before finally getting a main roster call-up, but the supposed blood feud ultimately underwhelmed on account of how far her stock had fallen.