Coming into WWE at the age of 20, WWE CCO Paul "Triple H" Levesque recalls Rhea Ripley as being "nice, polite, [and] shy." Slowly but surely, however, fans and colleagues saw Ripley's confidence grow. Part of that morale boost can be attributed to a praised match performance that resulted from Ripley being thrust into the semi-finals of the 2018 Mae Young Classic.
"It's hard to pinpoint a specific moment [I made it] because I feel like in my career there's been so many because I've had so many rollercoaster of emotions," Ripley told "Unsportsmanlike." "There's ups and downs where I'm like alright, that might be the end of that run. Then all of a sudden something else will happen and it'll pick up. But I think that the biggest one that really solidified my time here in the WWE and helped me start my historic run now, which is absolutely wild to say, it would be me and IYO SKY in the second Mae Young Classic.
"That was such horrible circumstances with Tegan Nox getting injured in the previous match that I had with her. So then I had to go on to that match. It was just a moment where everyone kind of realized that I was good at my job."
Originally, WWE officials planned for Tegan Nox to defeat Ripley and advance to the MYC semi-finals against IYO SKY. After Nox injured her knee and tibia mid-match, though, she couldn't continue, meaning Ripley would progress to SKY instead.Through the battle with SKY that followed, Ripley earned a nod of approval from both Levesque and her WWE colleagues, the latter of whom also made her feel more included amongst the roster afterward.
If you use any of the quotes in this article, please credit "Unsportmanlike" with a h/t to Wrestling Inc. for the transcription.
