Without a doubt, Rhea Ripley is one of the most dominant female athletes in the history of wrestling. Having held the Women’s World Championship for over a year and has defended it against high-caliber athletes, such as Nia Jax and Becky Lynch. The latter lost at WrestleMania 40.
But Ripley’s reign has come to an end due to a serious injury suffered last week. An injury that has forced the Judgment Day’s ‘Mami’ to vacate the title. But do you know that the WWE knew about the injury for several days before Mami vacated her title tonight? This major revelation came out in a recent podcast episode.
WWE kept the injury hidden for days
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On the latest episode of Monday Night RAW, as you can already guess, Rhea Ripley confirmed that she was injured after Liv Morgan’s attack last week and made the vacant status of her Women’s World Championship official. And it seems like it was a well-thought-out decision as according to Fightful’s Sean Ross Sapp, the WWE and Rhea Ripley had been talking about the decision for quite a few days. In a recent episode of Fightful Wrestling Podcast, Sapp said that “by Wednesday they were discussing internally that they were gonna need to vacate the title”.
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Ripley has held the title since Wrestlemania 39 where she beat Charlotte Flair in Los Angeles to become champion. And with this, Ripley ends a reign of 381 days and ten title defenses. Mami, however, has vowed that she will destroy whoever the women’s champion is upon her return. But who could be her possible opponent? Well, if she returns by Clash of the Castle, we may have a hint.
Rhea Ripley’s next opponent
While the severity of Rhea Ripley’s injury is still unknown, fans would want her to return by Clash of the Castle. WWE will hold the second edition of the Clash at the Castle event on June 15, which was already held in 2022. And not just fans, there’s a WWE superstar who too wants Ripley to be at the event. But who? Well, it’s not other than Piper Niven.
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Recently, Piper Niven has spoken about the event and expressed her desire to face Rhea Ripley. Speaking on The Gorilla Position, the former Tag Team Champion assured that it would be the perfect scenario for her. She said, “Why not? I don’t know if you know me this, but Rhea and myself had some absolute bangers back in the day. I think it’s time to run it back, but this announcement was very, very satisfying for me because the people of Scotland have deserved this for such a long time. Without the British boom, it’s my belief that there probably wouldn’t have been an NXT UK, and Scotland was a massive part of that boom,”
Fans surely would love to see them fight. As when they previously fought at the September 4th, 2019 edition of NXT UK, the match surely was a banger. And Niven surely would be looking forward to settling the score as she lost their previous encounter to a Riptide by ‘Mami’. What do you think? Should there be a round 2 of Niven vs. Ripley? Let us know in the comments.