Rhea Ripley Admits to Losing Confidence After Her WrestleMania 36 Loss

Rhea Ripley kicked off 2020 with white-hot momentum as the NXT Women's Champion. By March she was [...]

By Connor Casey

Rhea Ripley kicked off 2020 with white-hot momentum as the NXT Women's Champion. By March she was gearing up to make history as the first NXT champ to defend their title at WrestleMania, taking on Royal Rumble winner Charlotte Flair. But Ripley wound up losing to "The Queen," and never got the chance to get her revenge once Io Shirai won the women's title in a triple threat at NXT TakeOver: In Your House and Flair was shunted back to Raw. In a new interview with Lilian Garcia on the Chasing Glory podcast this week, Ripley admitted she lost her confidence after dropping the title.

"I felt like I went through a stage where I was losing confidence in myself because I wasn't portrayed the same way," Ripley said (h/t Fightful). "Even now, I'm still slowly building myself back up from it. My confidence was tainted a little, which sucks because I try to keep it up and do my best all the time. I don't know if it was something in my head that wasn't getting the picture, I just got a little bit lost after that. Now, I feel like I'm getting back on track. Building myself back up has been hard, it's been difficult, but I've found my track now and I'm getting back on it."

The Australian star said part of the way she regained that confidence was by going back and watching her old matches from her NXT UK run and her feud with Shayna Baszler. She recently got the chance to finally win the title back by taking on Shirai in a singles match, only to come up short. This past week saw her cut a promo where she assured fans that her bout with Shirai wasn't a send-off and that she's staying put on the NXT roster.

NXT's next pay-per-view, TakeOver: WarGames (2020), takes place this Sunday at the Capitol Wrestling Center. Check out the full card (so far) for the show below:

  • The Undisputed Era vs. Pat McAfee, Pete Dunne, Oney Lorcan and Danny Burch (WarGames Match)
  • Team Shotzi (Shotzi Blackheart, Ember Moon, TBA) vs. Team Candice (Candice LeRae, Dakota Kai Raquel Gonzalez and Toni Storm) (WarGames Match)
  • NXT North American Championship: Leon Ruff vs. Johnny Gargano vs. Damian Priest
  • Dexter Lumis vs. Cameron Grimes (Strap Match)
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