10 Things WWE Wants You To Forget About Rhea Ripley
2. The Original Judgment Day
Does this need an explanation? Did you see it?
That question's neither as rhetorical nor as snarky as it might first appear. The version of The Judgment Day - and indeed WWE - Rhea Ripley has managed to flourish in is absolutely nothing like the one she joined, and dropped as one of the last big Vince McMahon ideas before he resigned in disgrace (for the first time) and business boomed. As of 2024, she's led the group to Monday Night Raw supremacy, multiple tag and singles titles, and in turn propelled to rarified air at the top of the company alongside the likes of Bianca Belair and Becky Lynch.
It wasn't going to go that way had 2022's original version remained in place.
Brought in as salvation from a floundering run (the one thing that actually did make sense), Ripley and Damian Priest stood alongside Edge as he sat in a massive chair, all new-suit-and-haircut with promos that - to paraphrase a far more satisfying period of 'The Rated-R Superstar's career - totally reeked of obnoxious verbosity
It took Finn Bálor going from chief rival to surprise new member at Edge's extent to set them off on the right path, and Dominik Mysterio to complete the set and give Ripley an exceptional on-screen douchebag to flesh her character out alongside.