Raquel Rodriguez Says It Was a Pleasure Crafting Her Street Fight With Rhea Ripley

– During a recent interview with Love Wrestling, WWE Women’s Tag Team Champion Raquel Rodriguez discussed her epic Street Fight with Rhea Ripley at WWE Crown Jewel Riyadh in Saudi Arabia, which Ripley won. Below are some highlights (via Fightful):

Raquel Rodriguez on facing Rhea Ripley at Night of Champions: “Saudi is always an experience every time we go to Riyadh or to Jeddah. It’s definitely something that I did have on my list to get done. Now I’ve done it about three times and every time I still, I’m honestly- I’m very happy to go. I’m happy to be over there representing WWE, representing women’s wrestling and getting to experience that culture that we don’t really see or feel around here. Getting the opportunity to have a street fight with Rhea Ripley over there was absolutely amazing. I’m not going to lie.”

On how she feels the match catapulted her stardom: “Like I really feel that my star has catapulted since that night. I’ve reminded everyone who Raquel Rodriguez is because I think people watch that match and they haven’t seen me do singles work like that since NXT. I got called up to SmackDown and I was put into a position to now be, this good guy, this baby face and completely kind of changed my character a little bit and then I got put into tag storylines after tag storylines, and I became a tag specialist, and that just kind of became my forte, but it kind of became what everybody just saw me as. It became the normal for what everyone saw me as.”

On working with Rhea Ripley: “So for me to go to Riyadh and to go to Saudi Arabia, where women are still not- they’re not considered to have as many rights as the women over here have and to have a street fight and to have that kind of a reaction after a street fight from not just people watching the match who know the business, but from people who’ve never seen wrestling before and watching it for the first time and hearing their reactions. I feel very honored to know that that that’s something that I’ve trained hard and doing is perfecting my craft, and that right there was my craft and I’m so glad that everybody has been able to see it and they’ve been able to be reminded of exactly what Raquel Rodriguez can do. She’s not just your very experienced six time women’s tag team champion. She is an ex NXT women’s champion. I will fight for any singles title when I get the opportunity to, and I will show up and I will show out. So just to have that chance and to be able to work with Rhea again and to step into the ring with my arch nemesis, because we all know she is my enemy for life. Um, it’s just, it’s always a pleasure. It’s always a pleasure to create magic with someone so talented.”

Raquel Rodriguez is set for action later tonight at WWE Evolution 2025. She and tag team partner Roxanne Perez defend the WWE Women’s Tag Team Titles in a Fatal 4-Way bout against the teams of Charlotte Flair & Alexa Bliss, NXT’s Sol Ruca & Zaria, and The Kabuki Warriors. Tomorrow’s show is being held at the State Farm Arena in Atlanta, Georgia. It will be broadcast live on Peacock in the U.S. and on Netflix internationally.