Rhea Ripley Talks Wanting Second WWE Evolution Event, Love For Dragon Ball Z

Earlier this week, ComicBook.com had a chance to talk with Rhea Ripley before her number one contender match with Dakota Kai aired Wednesday night during NXT. The result of that match ended up being Kai taking home the victory and moving on to face NXT Women’s Champion Io Shirai at NXT TakeOver XXX at the end of this month. Meanwhile, Ripley finds herself in a feud with Mercedes Martinez, who was involved in the finish of the match with Kai on Wednesday night.

Part one of our interview with Ripley featured comments on her history with Kai, the WrestleMania match with Charlotte Flair, and how she has grown as a performer over the last several years. Today, we’ll dive into some other topics our conversation covered.

First of all, Ripley’s attire at WrestleMania set off a lot of conversation here on ComicBook.com as it was inspired by the Dragon Ball Z character Vegeta. We asked if we can expect another cosplay like that in the future and who she would want to pay tribute to.

“Yes. I absolutely loved that ring gear,” Ripley said. “There was so much hate online because I wasn’t wearing the color black and I understand that I wear the color black all the time, but it’s WrestleMania. If I want to be Vegeta, let me be Vegeta. I loved it so much. Like I’ve always loved Vegeta since I started watching Dragon Ball Z and I would love to do another Dragon Ball Z reference. I’m thinking along the lines of Android 18, because I sort of look like her, but at the same time, the clothes that she wears is so hard to morph into the clothes that I wear. She’s got the long sleeve stripey top. I don’t know how to make that into my top design. It’s very, very difficult. So I’m still trying to work it all out, but I promise that there’s going to be something else to do with Dragon Ball Z.”

Next question: if Ripley could star in a Marvel, D.C., or Dragon Ball Z film, which character would she want to play?

“If it was a Dragon Ball Z movie, definitely Android 18,” Ripley said. “Like I said before, I always get people saying that I look like her. I don’t know if it’s because my hair, especially now that it’s blonde. But I actually did a Android 18 cosplay for Halloween one year in Australia, and I loved it. So I would definitely love to play Android 18 for sure.”

On the wrestling front, there have been rumors of WWE producing another Evolution PPV event. The first Evolution show in 2018 was the first time that WWE produced an all women’s PPV event. At that show, Ripley and Kai worked a dark (untelevised) match. How important was that show to Ripley at the time, and how important is it for WWE to produce a second edition?

“Oh, it was extremely important,” Ripley said. “It was all the hard work and dedication that us girls put in the ring each and every time we step into it, all coming together for our own show. And I think that we all deserved it and I think we deserve another one. It was a great night. There were so many emotions that day and that entire night, it was incredible. We were all so happy and ecstatic for that show. And I think we blew the roof off the place, I think we really killed it.

“And it’s crazy to me cause I actually had to get the date tattooed on my wrist because that date, the date of Evolution, which was October 28th, was actually the same date that I had my tryout for Riot City Wrestling in Australia. And I got in, so it was six years apart exactly. So for me, that was an even more special date, but yeah, we definitely need another one and I hope that there’s another one in the near future, I guess we’ll see. And we’ll find out, but my fingers are crossed.”

For more from our discussion with Rhea Ripley, make sure to check out part one of the interview. You can catch her each and every week on Wednesday nights on the USA Network as part of WWE NXT. Additionally, you can give me a follow on Twitter @ryandroste for all things WWE.