Rhea Ripley recently appeared as a guest on the Gorilla Position podcast for an in-depth interview to promote the new WWE 2K24 video game and the upcoming WrestleMania XL two-night premium live event from Lincoln Financial Field in Philadelphia, PA.
During the discussion, the WWE Women's World Champion spoke about being in the main event of the WWE Elimination Chamber: Perth premium live event in Australia, how it was her "WrestleMania before WrestleMania" and more.
Featured below are some of the highlights from the interview where she touches on these topics with her thoughts.
On if her WWE Elimination Chamber: Perth main event in Australia met her expectations: "It definitely met all my expectations. It was something that meant so much to me. The last time that I competed over there was seven years ago and it was for Riot City Wrestling and I left as the Women’s Champion for Riot City Wrestling. It’s wild to come back, not only as a WWE Superstar, but as the Woman’s World Champion, being on this dominant run, and help put Australian wrestling on the map. To come back and finally have that big moment while having all these accolades and go in there and defend my title against arguably one of the best in the women’s division, Nia Jax, like I was in a threatening position with my title run because she is so strong. To have such a perfect opponent in such a perfect area, everything just sort of worked out so nicely for me. It told a great story."
On getting emotional on-camera and how it was her "WrestleMania before WrestleMania": "I tried my best not to get emotional on camera because honestly, coming out and doing my entrance and seeing all the Australian flags and hearing how excited everyone was and how hot they were to not only have WWE come back to Australia, but to have homegrown talent on the show, it was a very heartwarming moment. There were a couple of times where I had to scream or shake my head just to make sure that the tears wouldn’t come out of my eyes. Once the match was all said and done and I got the opportunity to sort of take it all in while being out there, because a lot of the time I don’t get to take it all in. I’m normally like, go, go, go and just get it done so I can feel good afterwards and think about it later, but I really didn’t want to do that with this specific PLE because this was my WrestleMania before WrestleMania. It was one of the biggest highlights of my career. So to actually have that moment after the match because we were the main event so I could be out there longer, just sort of sit in the ring and take it all in, it’s wild. It was such a lovely feeling."
Check out the complete interview at Apple.com. H/T to WrestlingNews.co for transcribing the above quotes.
