WWE Women’s Champion Rhea Ripley and AEW’s Buddy Matthews Get Engaged

AEW’s Buddy Matthews and WWE’s Rhea Ripley have been dating for a couple of years now. While the two met in WWE, much of their relationship has been spent in opposing companies, as the former Buddy Murphy exited WWE in 2021. He would go on to rebrand himself as Buddy Matthews and sign with AEW while Ripley continued to ascend within WWE, capturing singles gold in every brand she competed in. This past April, Ripley had her crowning achievement when she defeated Charlotte Flair to become WWE SmackDown Women’s Champion, a title that has now been rebranded as the WWE Women’s World Championship.

Buddy Matthews and Rhea Ripley Get Engaged

Taking to Instagram, Rhea Ripley shared a picture of herself sporting a ring alongside Buddy Matthews on a beach. Ripley confirmed in the caption that the new piece of jewelry was an engagement ring.

“1000x YES!” Ripley’s caption reads. “Pure f–king happiness!”

WWE x AEW Couples 

Couples within professional wrestling are common, but relationships that span across different companies can be a little bit more rare. With the current wrestling boom that is going on, inter-promotional relationships have become less of a rarity. AEW’s Toni Storm began dating Juice Robinson while the member of Bullet Club was still in New Japan Pro Wrestling. Keith Lee and Mia Yim met in WWE, before Lee was released and ultimately signed with AEW, and are now married. Multi-time WWE Women’s Champion Charlotte Flair is married to AEW’s Andrade El Idolo. 

The Dominik Mysterio Variable

Unlike those aforementioned names, Ripley is involved in an on-screen romance of sorts with Dominik Mysterio on WWE TV. This pairing has been referenced on AEW programming before, with Max Caster teasing Matthews about Dominik’s fictional relationship with his real-life girlfriend.

In the past, WWE has changed storylines to fit real-life engagements. In Summer 2015, Lana was involved in an on-screen romance with Dolph Ziggler as a way to get back at Rusev (AEW’s Miro) for treating her poorly. While that storyline was going on, Lana and Rusev were engaged in real life. This led to WWE scrapping the angle altogether and repairing Lana and Rusev together on screen once again. It’s unclear as to if WWE will now shy away from Rhea and Dominik’s perceived romance or if they will continue to embrace the fictitious couple.