In the co-main event of WrestleMania 39 Saturday, 2023 Women’s Royal Rumble winner Rhea Ripley defeated Charlotte Flair to win the SmackDown Women’s Championship.
Some people called this the best women’s match in WWE history.
Ric Flair had the following to say about this match on his podcast:
“They had the best match at WrestleMania (39). If I showed you the people that texted me, and I’ll never violate their privacy, what they sent me about Charlotte and Rhea, you’d be amazed.
These are people that know, not people that just speculate. From the time Ashley (Charlotte) hit that spinning DDT on Rhea, which she took perfectly on top of her head. There’s two ways to take it, you take it on your knees, that looks like sh*t. Or you take it straight up and down, which is dangerous, and you are asking a lot of trust in the person giving it to you, to that German, where she completely did a 360 off the second rope and landed on her face. Nothing like it.
Gorilla stood, which I’m privileged to be able to glad to, stood from the DDT up. Look at this [German suplex] bump? Who else in the business can do that?”
After this loss, Charlotte went on a hiatus from WWE.
Ric gave the following update on his daughter after the match:
“She’s fine. She’s got a bruise on her nose and black eye, but between that and the slugfest they had, I’m telling you, it was great. My hat’s off to Rhea Ripley.
She let Ashley hit her as hard as I used to hit (Ricky) Steamboat, and that’s what makes it real, as opposed to Seth Rollins and Logan Paul, laying on their backs, side by side, and slapping each other in the chest. Come on, they’re both better than that.
That looked bad compared to Ashley chopping Rhea. Come on. Let’s get serious.”
According to Xero News, WWE wants to do Rhea Ripley vs. Becky Lynch at WrestleMania 40 in April 2024.
After winning the Title, Ripley made a successful title defense against Zelina Vega at Backlash.
Ripley is currently scheduled to defend the SmackDown Women’s Title against Natalya at Night Of Champions, while Becky will face Trish Stratus for the first time ever at this same event.
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