Rhea Ripley sat down with Chris Van Vliet to discuss her rise in WWE, working with Dominik Mysterio and being called “Mami”, intergender spots and being compared to Chyna, her favorite WrestleMania moment, her viral stinkface spot with Nia Jax at a house show, an unwanted fan visit to her house, how she came up with the Riptide as her finisher, overcoming anxiety, her husband Buddy Matthews and more!

On the origin of her Rhea Ripley name:

“Oh man, this is a long time ago. I really like the name Isla. I love the name Isla. And that was one that I didn’t actually pull from anything, but it was Isla Radke, because at that time, I really loved Falling in Reverse and Ronnie Radke. He’s the main singer, so I loved his last name, just because it was so different. You don’t really hear Radke, especially not in Australia. I don’t know about America, but I liked that one. And then there was something Ashby. I can’t remember what the start of that one was. It was something Ashby. And [Alan] Ashby was the guitarist for Of Mice and Men. And then Rhea Ripley came from, Rhea is a Goddess’s name. And I was like, she’s cool. I like that. And then Ripley came from Alien [Ripley played by Sigourney Weaver]. She was a badass, and I was like, I want to be like that. I want to be a badass. They just mesh so well together with the RR, it just always works out. I mean, you see Roman Reigns, Ronda Rousey, Ruby Riott, Raquel Rodriguez. I don’t know what it is, it just works. But yeah, Rhea Ripley just stuck, and we were getting ready for the first Mae Young Classic, and I think it was Bloom, I believe, just walked past and he goes, ‘Rhea Ripley.’ I go ‘I guess so?’ I got no choice. I sent you my five names. You guys pick one.”

On being compared to Chyna:

“I love them. I really do love them. I think she was such a unique being in this industry, and she really did open up so much for women, especially intergender wise, and just like being part of DX and all of that. She’s done so much incredible stuff, and she’s really someone that I look up to, especially being different, being bigger and bulkier and just having a different build to a lot of the women, she’s someone that I really do look up to. So I’m glad that I get the comparisons, but at the same time, I want to be the first Rhea Ripley. I love that the whole storyline with Dom, him being Eddie, me being Chyna, it kind of just flowed. And a lot of the stuff that we did, we didn’t actually mean to match up with stuff that they did. It just kind of worked out that way. Even mannerisms, it just came so naturally that that would be what we would do. And we did it, we’d come back and then on Twitter, people would have comparisons of us doing it next to Chyna and Eddie doing the exact same thing and we’re like, wow, we didn’t even mean to do that. So, I love that there’s that comparison, but at the same time, I want to be like the first Rhea Ripley.”

On deciding on the Riptide as a finisher:

“My finish from the first Mae Young, I was doing that for a hot minute, and I was like this is sh*t. It doesn’t look impactful. It doesn’t look good if people don’t help me, I can’t do it myself. Because, literally, if they’re a little bit taller, I can’t pick them up very high. So I was like, I need to work on something. I went to the PC, Shane Haste was there and he’s like, I’ll help you work on something. So him, me and Tegan Nox went into this squishy ring that we had, it was like a padded ring where you could do high flying stuff to practice. It’s just a nice landing, instead of landing on the normal mat, which sucks when you’re learning.

He was throwing out random moves and then we got onto the pump handle slam. And I was like, that’s kind of cool, I like that one. I’d watch the video a little bit to see how it was performed, looks like it could be really impactful. So I did it with Tegan in the squishy ring for the first time. I said I like that. I think I’m gonna stick with this. It was at the time where everyone’s trying to find a finishing move, and if you’re not on TV, you’ve got to keep your stuff hidden, because people will steal it. So it was like, I hit it a couple of times, and I was like, Okay, I think it’s good. Filmed it, had it on camera, and then I hid it away until the second Mae Young Classic. I hid it away for so long, and I was like, I can’t let anyone see this move, because someone’s going to do it on TV before me, and I can’t get booked to save my life. I had to wait all the way to the second Mae Young Classic, where I finally pulled it out and hit it.”

On whether anything hurts due to wrestling:

“Normally my lower back, especially lately, I don’t know what’s been going on. I think it actually started from the match I had with Raquel in NXT, where she gave me the back body drop onto the announce table, but we undershot it and I hit the very edge of the table, like right on my lower back. After that, my lower back was never the same. But I mean, I do whatever I can to try and make it better. I have a masseuse, Matthew, come over and he works on it. He helps stretch me out, and puts my hips back in line pretty much, and just fixes all that. And thank God for him that he comes over to help. Because sometimes it gets really bad. I didn’t think that I would be able to wrestle at WrestleMania 41.”

On possibly missing Mania 41:

“WrestleMania 41, I didn’t think I was going to be able to compete because my back was so bad leading up to it. The two nights beforehand, I got [my masseuse] Matthew to come to my room, and he worked on me the night before Hall of Fame and the night of Hall of Fame. I was like, I need you to make sure I can walk tomorrow. And he worked on me those two nights, and it loosened completely just in time for the match. Then after the match, it was okay, and then, slowly, because I’ve been wrestling more, it just slowly tightens up, but that’s because I just don’t stretch on my own, so that’s my fault as well. It gets really bad. I don’t know if it’s a sciatic thing or whatnot, or just my body in itself, the shape of my body and how I’m put together. I don’t know what’s going on, but it’s something. But it does go down, and it definitely revs up sometimes, and sometimes it’s just bearable.”