Rhea Ripley has made extra professional wrestling historical past, turning into the primary Australian to win the WWE’s most well-known match, the Royal Rumble.
The Adelaide-born star, 26, additionally grew to become the primary girl to enter at No.1 and go the entire manner, outlasting the opposite 29 different entrants to win the over-the-top-rope battle royal.
The win means Ripley will problem for one of many two WWE ladies’s championships on the greatest present of the 12 months, WrestleMania, which this 12 months will maintain its thirty ninth version at Los Angeles’ SoFi Stadium.
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Ripley has been a trailblazer for Aussie wrestling, not simply successful championships in WWE however turning into one of many firm’s greatest ladies’s stars.
Two years in the past she efficiently challenged Asuka for the Uncooked Girls’s Championship at WrestleMania 37, simply weeks after making her debut on the primary roster following a profitable stint within the NXT developmental model.
Over the previous eight months she has grown her profile once more as a part of the brand new Judgment Day faction, in one thing of a dominating position that has included her wrestling towards males and controlling Dominik Mysterio, the son of legendary luchador Rey.
Ripley was certainly one of three Australians within the ladies’s Royal Rumble, together with Melbourne-born pair Emma and Indi Hartwell, whereas Nia Jax (who was born in Sydney) additionally featured, plus Kiwi Dakota Kai.
They’re a few of quite a few Aussies that includes on this planet’s greatest professional wrestling firm proper now, together with Sydney’s Grayson Waller fundamental eventing the NXT promotion and difficult for the NXT Championship within the coming weeks, plus Adelaide-born pair Bronson Reed (not too long ago coming back from a powerful stint in Japan) and Duke Hudson, and Xyon Quinn (aka ex-NRL participant Daniel Vidot).
Earlier within the present Cody Rhodes returned and gained the lads’s Royal Rumble.