Rhea Ripley on Facing Dakota Kai, Challenging Io Shirai For The NXT Women’s Title
Photo Credit: Bill Pritchard
Rhea Ripley recently spoke with Mike Johnson of PWInsider and discussed various topics. Highlights include Ripley’s thoughts on facing Dakota Kai, potentially squaring off with Io Shirai and getting a rematch with Charlotte Flair. Transcription credit of Mike Johnson of PWInsider.
On facing Dakota Kai:
Ripley: “It’s not going to be an easy task pretty much. Dakota’s changed a lot from the Dakota that I used to know and it’s gonna be very hard to defeat her this time, but you know, I miss my NXT Women’s Championship so I’m going to do anything that I can to try and go through Dakota and become the #1 Contender and get a singles match against Io Shirai, so I guess we’ll see if I can pull it off or not tomorrow, but you know I’m down for a fight.”
On Dakota’s Kai’s evolution:
Ripley: “So the Dakota that she was before NXT Takeover: War Games – she was sort of like a team player and she just tried to please everyone and I understand that, cause that’s how I was in the first Mae Young Classic, but the Dakota that we see these days and that has evolved into the person that she is today, she no longer cares about anything that anyone says or anything that anyone thinks. She’s not a team player like she says and that’s very dangerous cause – like that, I was like that in NXT UK and I know what it does to your mind and I know how angry she is feeling right now, so I know that she’s not going to hold back at all and she wants to go, she wants what she thinks that she deserves and I really gotta watch myself going into this match tomorrow because I honestly don’t really know what to expect from her, she could do anything.”
On facing Io Shirai for the NXT Women’s Championship:
Ripley: “I would love to have a one on one match with Io Shirai going for the NXT Women’s Championship. Like you said, the last match I had was a three-way, it had Charlotte in it, so you sort of have to watch your back at all times, where if it’s one on one, you can really just pay attention to the one person, and last time I stepped in the ring with Io in a one on one match was the Mae Young Classic 2, and she beat me, so [laughs], and now she has my NXT Women’s Championship, so I would love to have a one on one match with Io and try and reclaim what was mine and I think it would be a lot of fun. She’s great, she’s a fantastic performer and athlete and she’s incredible at everything that she does, and she’s a lot of fun to step in the ring with, cause you never really know what’s going to happen, so yeah I’m very excited to see if that is what happens.”
On facing Charlotte Flair again:
Ripley: “Definitely, every time I step in the ring with Charlotte, it’s always magic, and we always steal the show, so I really hope that we get to have another one on one match sometime down the line, when that is, I have no idea, hopefully she comes back soon, but yeah I would definitely love it, and hopefully this time it can be in front of fans in the audience, which would be amazing, cause it’s just a different sort of setting and it’s something that we haven’t done yet.”
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