Jade Cargill is treating her first WWE Women’s Championship reign as a learning experience and says the next one will look very different.
Speaking exclusively with The Takedown on Sports Illustrated, Cargill reflected on her nearly 170-day title reign and her WrestleMania 42 loss to Rhea Ripley, acknowledging both what worked and what she wished had been different. On the match itself, Cargill credited Ripley’s experience while making clear she believed she held her own.
“She can’t go out there and have that stellar match if I don’t put on a show as well. Rhea has always had amazing dance partners. She’s worked with Charlotte, she’s worked with Becky. It takes two to tango. I wasn’t nervous last year. I had a match with the great Naomi. I thought we had a superb match in itself. It wasn’t a title match, so obviously it’s not gonna have as much buzz around it, but I don’t think that this was any different. I just had a title. And a title doesn’t make me, I make the title,” Cargill said.
She was equally candid about the shortcomings of her reign, identifying the lack of competitive matches as the primary thing she wished had been different.
“I wanted to wrestle more. I wanted more competitive matches. I wanted more grit. I really wanted to sink my teeth into whatever was being thrown at me. That’s all I wanted with my reign, but we didn’t get that as much as I wanted, and that’s fine. But now that I had a practice run, I’m gonna call it a practice run, I’m gonna say next time is gonna be totally different,” Cargill said.
She also drew on a memory from her very first professional wrestling match to speak to her comfort level around high-profile situations, recalling advice she received from Shaquille O’Neal during their AEW debut tag team match alongside Cody Rhodes and Red Velvet.
“I’ve been around superstars my entire life. That first match in AEW, I was working with Cody Rhodes, and I was working with Shaquille O’Neal. Something that always sticks with me is that I asked him if he was nervous. He was like, ‘Nervous? I can go out there, I could trip, fall, whatever. I’m still gonna be me. I’m still a star,'” Cargill said.
Cargill won the WWE Women’s Championship at Saturday Night’s Main Event in November 2025 from Tiffany Stratton, with reports indicating the title change was influenced by Stratton’s knee injury. Her first title defense came on the February 13 edition of SmackDown. Ripley claimed the championship from her at WrestleMania 42 following a feud that began after Ripley’s Elimination Chamber victory.
