WWE Raw: The exciting debut of Rhea Ripley

After weeks of vignettes touting Rhea Ripley’s debut, the former NXT Women’s Champion finally debuted on the March 22 episode of WWE Raw. She didn’t waste any time staking her claim to the women’s division’s top spot.

Not only was Ripley’s debut on WWE Raw an injection of much-needed excitement, but it created a must-see matchup for WrestleMania.

In case you missed it, here’s Ripley debuting by interrupting Asuka’s celebration following “The Empress of Tomorrow’s” victory over Peyton Royce.

There is one undeniable fact about Ripley: she has a presence about her. She carries herself with such confidence and intensity, and that makes her a welcome addition to the Monday night show. None of it is off-putting or cocky. She just has utter belief in herself.

Let’s be honest, the Raw women’s division since Becky Lynch relinquished the Raw Women’s Championship to become a mother has been lackluster at best. This isn’t necessarily the wrestlers’ fault, as the writing and booking have mostly let them down, a problem that plagues pretty much everyone not named Roman Reigns.

After saying Charlotte Flair is unavailable because she has COVID, a fact Flair revealed shortly after the show started, Ripley got to the point of her interruption: she challenged Asuka to a match at WrestleMania 37 for the Raw Women’s Championship.

I popped, hard. 

Asuka, winded from her longer than expected match with Royce, spoke charismatically in Japanese before saying, “Rhea Ripley, I accept!” Just like that, we now have a Women’s Championship match from Raw that I’m actually looking forward to watching.

Previously, all signs were pointing toward an Asuka-Flair match with WWE’s incessant need to book Women’s Championship challengers into tag teams with the singles champions as they vie for the Women’s Tag Team Championship. Why?

I’m sure they would have put on a good match, but we’ve just seen Asuka vs. Flair too many times to remember. They also faced each other at WrestleMania before, with Flair ending Asuka’s undefeated streak by forcing her to tap to the Figure Eight.

Finally, we have a match between two women’s wrestlers who have no connection to each other in a tag team setting. Beyond that, these two have never met in WWE sans the branded triple threat elimination tag team match at Survivor Series 2019.

A fresh matchup? In WWE? I’m shocked!

I can gush all day about the match, their styles, their show-stealing potential, and the storyline tie-in of Ripley losing the NXT Championship at last year’s event to Flair, but I want to focus on what Ripley’s debut may portend for the women’s division at a macro level.

First, as mentioned above, there are a bevy of fresh matchups for Ripley. Even if she faced some of the women on Raw when they were in NXT, far more viewers watch Raw than NXT, so even those matchups will be fresh to roughly two-thirds of the Monday night audience.

Second, outside of Nia Jax and Flair, most of the women’s division looks similar in body type. Ripley is decidedly not so. She looks a little leaner, but she still retained her toned physique. Anyone who follows her on social media knows she’s a workout fiend.

Third, that distinct size and look translates to her style, a blend of technical wrestling, strong style, and brawling. Her Prism Trap submission, an inverted cloverleaf where she actually LIFTS her opponent off the mat, has been one of my favorites since she introduced the hold. It’s a microcosm of her technique, strength, and ability.

Fourth, as shown in her debut promo, her confidence and intensity translate well to the mic. As she spoke to Asuka, all I could see in her eyes were pure faith in her abilities and that she believes she will defeat Asuka for the title. To quote an unnamed former NXT wrestler, you can’t teach that.

If you want a more sustained example, revisit her rivalries with Bianca Belair and Shayna Baszler from NXT and witness her growth on the mic.

Obviously, I think the world of what Ripley will hopefully bring to Raw. She is an amazing talent who’s come FAR from when we first saw her all those years ago as the stereotypical white-meat babyface in the inaugural Mae Young Classic. Now, she seems like a wrestler who should run roughshod through the whole roster.

My prediction: Ripley defeats Asuka at WrestleMania to become the new Raw Women’s Champion. “The Reign of Ripley” is nearly upon us.