On this week’s episode of NXT, Rhea Ripley made an appearance to support Zaria and other NXT Superstars. She appeared confident, encouraging the babyface team for their upcoming match and looked at ease returning to her former NXT roots.
Right before the main event, however, cameras caught Women’s World Champion Liv Morgan and Raquel Rodriguez backstage, walking off with baseball bats. Shortly after, Ripley was shown lying injured next to her car with a cut on her head, bleeding—an unexpected moment that left fans shocked, as they hadn’t seen Ripley in such a state before.
Fightful Select reported there were some internal concerns within NXT regarding the amount of blood shown in Ripley’s parking lot scene. However, the segment was ultimately approved by Shawn Michaels, Triple H, Lee Fitting, or a CW executive.
Liv tweeted the following after this segment:
“Rhea bloody Ripley”.
WWE later reported that Ripley is injured:
“On NXT, Rhea Ripley was heinously attacked in the parking lot by Women’s World Champion Liv Morgan and her enforcer Raquel Rodriguez.
Following the brutal attack, it has been revealed that The Nightmare has suffered a fractured right orbital socket, which will put Ripley out of action for an undisclosed amount of time.”
Ripley sent the following message to Morgan on X:
“Mistake no.1
You left me breathing.”
Many fans were thinking that this is just an injury angle, but that’s not the case.
According to PWInsider, sources indicate that a legitimate injury is the reason behind this storyline. The injury is believed to have occurred during a headbutt spot on the October 21st episode of RAW, leading to her being pulled from the upcoming RAW tapings on Sunday in Saudi Arabia.
The Wrestling Observer also confirmed the injury is real, speculating that the break likely happened during last week’s RAW:
“She’s got a fractured orbital bone. So, the injury that they announced is pretty much legit. Yeah, it happened last week. I’m not sure, probably the last TV thing, because she hasn’t worked any house shows. So probably in the last TV angle that she did with Raquel, you know, was where it happened most likely.
And she is going to be out for a while, and I guess that’s, I don’t know, 100% that’s why she’s not on the pay-per-view, because I did hear that match for the pay-per-view.
It happened last week, and then they did this thing as a cover because, you know, to basically have a reason for her to be out of action.”
WATCH: Rhea Ripley’s Revealing Photoshoot:
