Despite her dominant on-screen persona, Rhea Ripley has revealed she was “terrified” before her WrestleMania 40 match against Becky Lynch. Speaking on Insight with Chris Van Vliet, Ripley opened up about the immense pressure she felt heading into the high-profile encounter.
Ripley explained that she put a lot of extra stress on herself, not just because of the match’s significance, but also because Lynch was sick leading up to the event. She admitted to being self-conscious about potential ring rust and the negative fan reactions that could follow a poor performance.
“I feel that pressure all the time. I’ve said it before, but WrestleMania 40 against Becky Lynch, I was terrified. I worked myself up so drastically that whole day, and I put so much extra stress on my own shoulders with things that I couldn’t even, they weren’t my responsibilities. I worked myself up because Becky was sick, and I was like okay, well, I need to be at 110% so that I can help her wherever I need to help her. Then I hadn’t had many matches, so I was like, I need this to be a good match. I need people to remember that I can actually go and I can actually wrestle.
Because a lot of the times back then, when I had the championship, I wasn’t wrestling a lot, and that made me a little rusty, then I got self conscious, and I’m just like, I don’t want to sh*t the bed. I don’t want to go out there and have a stinker and then have people say, ‘Oh, this is why she shouldn’t be champion.’ ‘She sucks.’ ‘She can’t wrestle.’ ‘She’s overpushed.’ ‘She’s Rhea Hogan.’ I didn’t want all of that to start spiraling, because it does, and it’s hard to escape from.”
If you use any portion of the quotes from this article, please credit Insight With Chris Van Vliet with an h/t to WrestlingNews.co for the transcription.
