Rhea Ripley Says She Loved Her WrestleMania 36 Match With Charlotte Flair, Felt the Experience Was ‘Incredible’

– In an interview with PWInsider and Mike Johnson, NXT Superstar Rhea Ripley discussed her career, her WrestleMania 36 match with Charlotte Flair and more. Ripley will be facing Io Shirai later tonight on NXT. Below are some highlights from PWInsider.

Rhea Ripley on not being able to see her family due to the COVID-19 pandemic: “It’s very sad. I’m a huge family person. I love having my mom, my dad, and my sister around. I love having all my friends around from Australia and I really, really do miss them, and it’s sad. Especially knowing that for WrestleMania, they were supposed to be in the crowd watching me. And then I had to go home and do my visa, which is now… I have to do it from here somehow. And then my sister was coming back to do a camp that I don’t remember what it was called, but a camp. I was supposed to spend a lot of time with them and knowing that I won’t get to see them for a lot longer now it’s sad because I haven’t seen them since I want to say Christmas, and it’s too long for me. I miss my family. FaceTime can only do so much. I want to give him a hug. I want to spend time with them. So I was talking to my mom and she was saying that possibly Australia might not open up its border for like two years. And I’m like, that’s so long for me.”

Rhea Ripley on her matchup with Io Shirai set for tonight: “Obviously Io is a credible athlete and she’s very, very good at what she does. At the same time, I think that I’m pretty good. And last time we had a match at the second ever Mae Young Classic, it was amazing. It’s one of my favorite matches. I constantly go back and watch it just to see what I did well. So this match is going to be nothing else but that. Yeah, just sit down and enjoy pretty much, that’s all I’m going to say. We’re going to have a hard hitting match and I can’t wait. I love that sort of style. I love the Japanese style and I’m very excited.”

On her WrestleMania 36 match with Charlotte Flair: “I absolutely loved it. I enjoyed it thoroughly, even though it was super weird with no crowd. And it was the first time that I had competed or just come out in front of no crowd. It was super strange, but at the same time, like Wrestlemania is Wrestlemania and it was still a huge moment for me in my career; to be able to share that and share the ring was no one other than Charlotte Flair was just incredible. To have so much praise on that match after we did it, it was just insane to think that I’m 23 years old, I’ve been wrestling for eight years and I was just on Wrestlemania. Everyone telling me that I just absolutely killed it. Man, it was definitely a confidence boost. And I was so happy that I legit, like I don’t cry, but I cried. I sat down and I teared up. I was just sobbing. It’s just like an overwhelming feeling of just pride and stress just being lifted, but it was amazing.”