Rhea Ripley looks back on her first WrestleMania.
Over the course of her WWE main roster career so far, Rhea Ripley has been a staple of WrestleMania events, most recently defending the WWE Women's World Championship at WrestleMania 40. For the first WrestleMania of her career, Rhea also defended the NXT Women's Championship vs Charlotte Flair, with no fans in attendance at WrestleMania 36 due to the Covid-19 pandemic.
While speaking to the Toronto Sun, Ripley spoke about WrestleMania 36 being her first, noting that she sees being part of the first WrestleMania without fans as an accomplishment.
"Yeah, it's a wild thing to think and then say out loud, no fans in attendance. My first WrestleMania, it was just like a wild mixture of emotions because I remember going to the stadium and walking around and looking at everything and I was getting so excited. I was like, 'my family's gonna be here'. Then obviously everything got shut down. So my build-up to Wrestlemania was kind of like very strange and my emotions were kind of everywhere because I was so excited to one, be a part of WrestleMania. Two, this was like the biggest moment of my career, like at that current time. But then to have it kind of all be ripped away and back at the Performance Center, which is where I started training here in America with WWE, it kind of just felt very strange to me. It didn't feel real. Obviously, it's still my first Mania. I still want to go out there. I want to have like an amazing match. I want to have fun and take everything in that's obviously going on in the ring only because that's only what we had. But I remember going out there and like just doing my entrance and even that in itself was so awkward. It was so awkward because like it was at a time where you can't, take forever to walk through the curtain because there's no fans. So you literally have to go as soon as your music hits so they have something to see watching on their TVs, and for me, I have a certain point in my song where I go out there, especially with my older song as well, which was a good five to 10 seconds before I went out. So walking out straight away was very... it threw me off because then I had to just pace on the stage and wait for my stomp and then awkwardly walk down to the ring to absolutely no high fives, no cheers, no nothing. Just Charlotte looking back at me and I'm just like, 'oh no'. But it was fun and it was a memory and it's a part of history that I can never erase and no one can ever erase. I was a part of the first and only WrestleMania with absolutely zero fans. So I'll take it as an accomplishment."
Rhea Ripley is currently set to compete on WrestleMania 41 Sunday, challenging for the WWE Women's World Championship in a triple threat match that also features IYO Sky and Bianca Belair. You can read more about this here.
Elsewhere in another interview, Rhea spoke about feeling like the rivalry is 'spicing up' heading into WrestleMania. You can read more about that here.
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