Rhea Ripley looks extremely different from how she did when she debuted in WWE. The Eradicator recently revealed the personal reason that led her to undergo a massive appearance change.
The 28-year-old officially signed with the Stamford-based company ahead of the inaugural Mae Young Classic Tournament in 2017. Back then, she had long blonde hair and a seemingly generic look. However, in a recent interview with Stephanie McMahon on her new show, Stephanie’s Places, Ripley confessed that she struggled with her confidence at the time and even considered quitting and returning to her home country of Australia.
Ripley revealed that she sat with herself and decided to take serious steps to become better at the time, starting with changing her appearance, which was the thing she was most uncomfortable about:
“It brought me to a point where I sat down with myself one day and I was like, ‘You need to be better, you need to be yourself, and you need to prove people wrong.’ And, you know, prove yourself wrong at the end of the day as well. And it’s gonna start with what is the most uncomfortable thing that you find about yourself. And for me, it was the way that I looked,” she said.
The former Women’s World Champion said that she felt she was hiding behind her long blonde hair when she got embarrassed. Hence, she decided to cut her hair and mimic the style of her favorite bands growing up, like Papa Roach, Of Mice and Men, and Motionless in White. Ripley also changed her attitude as she headed into the 2018 Mae Young Classic:
“They all have a specific style and they’re all like heavily tattooed, but they’re like the sweetest people at the same time. So, they look really scary but they’re really really sweet. And, I don’t know, it’s something about watching them growing up, I’ve always like, I wanted to mold myself around that coz that’s my sort of style as well. I cut my hair. I changed my gear. I had a new attitude. I don’t care what people think about me anymore. I’m gonna go out there and I’m gonna do what feels right for me. Like I felt like I was finally becoming the person that I was supposed to become,” Ripley added.
WWE refused to hire Rhea Ripley when she was 17
Rhea Ripley started her wrestling career when she was only 16. A few months after her first match in the Australian promotion MCW, The Eradicator got a tryout with WWE after seemingly being suggested by someone she did not know.
However, WWE refused to hire the former Women’s World Champion after learning she was just 17 years old, as she revealed on Stephanie’s Places. They promised her to give her another tryout when she turned 21:
“I had my first match six months in, so I was still 16. And then, when I was 17, WWE did come to Australia. They also held tryouts. I think they might have asked some people that they knew in Australia who in Australia they should look at and my name somehow got thrown in there by one of them. So, I got a tryout at 17 and then they were like, ‘Oh, we didn’t realize you were 17 years old. We might have to come back and give you a tryout when you’re 21,” she said.
Rhea Ripley has now become one of the top stars in WWE. She will wrestle Bianca Belair and IYO SKY in a Women’s World Title Triple Threat Match at WrestleMania 41.
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