Rhea Ripley Talks Being Emotional Prior To WrestleMania 39 Match
Rhea Ripley has opened up about how she felt very emotional ahead of her WrestleMania 39 match that saw her become the Smackdown Women’s Champion.
Ahead of the biggest match of her WWE career, Rhea Ripley revealed that she was a bit of an emotional wreck, which is not something she is used to.
At WrestleMania 39, the 2023 Women’s Royal Rumble winner Rhea Ripley defeated Charlotte Flair to become the Smackdown Women’s Champion in a match that many people consider to be one of the best women’s matches in WWE history.
While appearing on this week’s WWE After The Bell Podcast with Corey Graves & Kevin Patrick, Rhea Ripley revealed that she was very emotional going into the title match.
“That whole day, I was just everywhere. I couldn’t get in the zone of, I’m going to be out here competing. All I could really think about was how tired I was, how I shouldn’t eat because my gear might not fit properly, how my family was going to get into the building. I was stressing about that. How my boyfriend was going to get into the building. I’m stressing about that.”
Rhea Ripley’s boyfriend is former WWE superstar Buddy Murphy, who works for AEW as Buddy Matthews. He was with her at the Hall of Fame ceremony on the Friday before WrestleMania 39. She continued to talk about how she was feeling.
“Then also just on top of that, like the overwhelming feeling of like, this is WrestleMania and I don’t feel like I am as prepared as I should be for it. I had so many different emotions going through my body.”
“Then there was the excitement as well on top of that. I remember, I know it’s on film somewhere, they haven’t posted it yet, but they were asking me by the ring before the doors opened all these questions because I was getting really emotional before that watching Dominik go through his entrance. I was getting real emotional and then they started asking me questions because they’re like, ‘Oh, she’s vulnerable. Let’s get her with the camera.’ I don’t know. I just burst out crying.”
As she continued, Rhea Ripley explained that while she was very happy, she was also nervous.
“I was just so happy and excited, but also stressed out and nervous. It was like a commercial and everything all at once. but then once the crowd got let in and everything was starting to sink in a little bit more, I knew that my family were in there, they were all good, because with Australian phones, my mom’s not very good at technology, so I wasn’t going to be able to contact her at all, and I’m super busy too. So once I knew they were in, I was good.”
“Then it was just trying to get ready in time because it was an early show because we’re on the west coast. I’m not used to that either. I’m trying to do my makeup, get my gear ready, warm up, like all these different things while trying to eat and drink water which I don’t normally get to do. I normally have people feeding me like fruit all day.”
Elsewhere during her After The Bell appearance, Ripley made it clear that she felt like her match with Flair should have been the main event of WrestleMania 39 Saturday.