6 Ups & 5 Downs From WWE Raw (April 18)

Ups…

6. Finally, Rhea Gets A Shakeup

Rhea Ripley Liv Morgan
WWE.com

It’s fair to say that Rhea Ripley has been in something of a freefall for a while now, taking up space on the Raw roster but not maximizing her potential.

Ripley won the Raw Women’s Championship at WrestleMania 37, but she lost the title three months later and has sputtered about, joining two different tag teams, one with Nikki ASH – who turned on her – and then Liv Morgan.

On one hand, it’s good they found a way to keep Rhea on TV, but she was a can’t-miss prospect coming up to the main roster and was stuck in tag teams with much smaller partners spinning her wheels for months. Even her tag title run was fairly nondescript.

So when Liv and Rhea lost their title shot Monday against Sasha Banks & Naomi and took it out on Morgan, it was something that was long needed: a character shakeup. Ripley as a heel could be a serious challenger for Bianca Belair. It gets her away from being the chummy tag partner and hopefully lets her show her singles skills in the ring a bit more.

There’s no guarantee this is going to go greatly, but it’s at least something different.

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Contributor
Contributor

Scott is a former journalist and longtime wrestling fan who was smart enough to abandon WCW during the Monday Night Wars the same time as the Radicalz. He fondly remembers watching WrestleMania III, IV, V and VI and Saturday Night's Main Event, came back to wrestling during the Attitude Era, and has been a consumer of sports entertainment since then. He's written for WhatCulture for more than a decade, establishing the Ups and Downs articles for WWE Raw and WWE PPVs/PLEs and composing pieces on a variety of topics.