Rhea Ripley – “We Should Have Been WrestleMania Main Event”
Rhea Ripley has reflected on her big win at WrestleMania 39 by making the point that her match should have been the WrestleMania Saturday main event.
For the past four WrestleManias going back to WrestleMania 36 in 2020, WWE has turned WrestleMania into a two-night event with about four hours of content on Saturday night followed by four hours of content on Sunday night.
Going into this year’s WrestleMania 39 event, there were a lot of questions about what match should headline WrestleMania Saturday: The Usos vs. Sami Zayn & Kevin Owens for the Undisputed WWE Tag Team Titles or Charlotte Flair defending the Smackdown Women’s Title against Royal Rumble winner Rhea Ripley.
Ultimately, WWE and their Chief Content Officer Triple H, who made the call, went with Zayn & Owens beating The Usos as the main event of WrestleMania Saturday. At the post-WrestleMania press conference, Triple H explained it by saying the tag team story was “most impactful” meaning the story was better.
While Rhea Ripley not only beat Charlotte Flair to become Smackdown Women’s Champion for the first time, the match was praised heavily as one of the greatest women’s matches in WWE history.
During an appearance on this week’s WWE After The Bell Podcast with Corey Graves & Kevin Patrick, Rhea Ripley explained why she felt her match with Charlotte Flair should have been the WrestleMania Saturday main event while also admitting the build wasn’t as good as the tag team match.
“Coming out of that match, I did feel like we stole the show. I feel we went out there and left everything we had in the ring and proved to everyone exactly why we should have been in the main event spot. Yes, we didn’t have a good build like Sami, Owens, and the Usos; at the same time, Charlotte and I, every time we step in the ring, we bring the brutality, we bring the ferocious when we go out there and we just beat the living crap out of each other.”
“All the praise that we got, it made me happy and made me proud that we went out there and beat the crap out of each other and loved it. It’s a weird feeling. I get it, I do get it.”
When asked about her mentality going into the match and if she feels like she has a “top this” attitude, Rhea Ripley responded with this.
“It’s a lot how I felt going into the first women’s WarGames match. We had our WarGames shirts and it was FTMF, that was printed on the back and that was the same mentality that I had going into this WrestleMania.”
“The day of was a complete mess to me. I was emotionally unstable, I want to say, because of the lack of sleep and everything coming full circle. I knew that as soon as my music played and I stepped out of Gorilla and into (the arena) and all the fans staring back at me that I was going to switch on and that’s when the Rhea Ripley you see comes out and all my confidence comes rushing through my body and I’m going to go out there and do everything I can to steal the show.”
One person that strongly agrees with Ripley that the Ripley-Flair match should have been the main event of WrestleMania Saturday is Ric Flair, who also happens to be Charlotte’s proud father.