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RHEA RIPLEY DISCUSSES WRESTLEMANIA 38, GROWING UP ON THE ROAD WITH WWE, DECIDING TO BE HERSELF, TEAMING WITH LIV MORGAN, COUNTING DOWN TO WWE'S AUSTRALIA RETURN & MUCH MORE: COMPLETE TRANSCRIPT

Rhea Ripley, alongside Liv Morgan, will be among the challengers for the WWE Women's Tag Team Championship at Wrestlemania 38 Night Two tonight in Dallas, Texas.  Several days ago, Ripley sat with PWInsider.com to talk life, Wrestlemania, home, growing up on the road and much more.

Mike Johnson: Hey everybody. It's WrestleMania weekend and I'm very happy to be talking to the great Australian, Rhea Ripley. First time we've done this in person. How are you?

Rhea Ripley: I'm good, man. How are you?
 
Mike Johnson: I'm great and It's good to finally meet you in person. We've done this couple of times on the phone. So big match this weekend. Women's Tag Team Championship. You and Liv Morgan. Very unique tag team. You had your WrestleMania debut, in front of the fans, last year and that was a big moment for you. But this is a little bit of a different animal with a 100 000 people in the AT&T Stadium. Thoughts on the Women's Tag Team Championship match and your anticipation leading into this craziness?

Rhea Ripley: I'm very excited. I'm very, very excited. It's wild to see how far I've come in my WrestleMania matches from the NXT Women's Championship against Charlotte in front of zero people...the first one, zero people. Second one, limited capacity with Asuka. I won the Raw Women's Championship. Third one... This one can be full capacity and I'm going for the Women's Tag Team Championships with Liv. I think that's absolutely wild to see how different every year has been for me. But I'm so excited and I'm so glad that I get to share this moment with Liv. She's special, dude. She really is. She has worked so hard to be where she is and she works hard every single day, and I love to see it. And I love that I get to share this moment with her when we step out on stage and get the roaring ovation from the crowd. And hopefully win the Women's Tag Team Championships.

Mike Johnson: I think anyonr who saw the documentary that was on the WWE Network, or if you're in the States, Peacock, about Liv. They get a real idea of how driven she is and how much she's overcome just in her time in the company. Yeah. Obviously this came together in a very, very fast pace manner. Yes. Sometimes you get storylines that are built over months. Sometimes it's like, "All right, and next week we're doing this." It's just the nature of the game. Yeah. What is easier or harder to prepare for mentally? Is it easier to know... All right, in six weeks, this is the end game and it could always change. Yeah. Or by the way, next week, this is WrestleMania and we're going for this now?

Rhea Ripley: I don't know. So both have cons and both have pros. So, I think I'd rather find out as it goes. Because then you get the real reactions to things.

Mike Johnson: Get to live in the moment. Yeah. Yeah. No pun intended.

Rhea Ripley: Yeah. Good. I love it. I think that's probably the better one. Cause you get genuine reactions from people and if something doesn't work, you can change it. And if something does work, you can run with it where if you have that end goal already and yes, it might change, but you're working towards that. And sometimes you ignore the reactions from the people because you're like, "This is the end goal." And then it just doesn't work out the way that you want it to.

Mike Johnson: We've seen quite an evolution of you since you first debuted on WWE programming. What has it been like figuring out what works for Rhea Ripley on camera? Because it's evolved since we first saw you. Yeah. What's that sort of experimentation like when you have such a machine that you're working with and you don't want to try too vastly a different idea from what their vision of you might be. So what's it like with that... I don't want to say tug of war because that sounds like you're fighting because you're not. Yeah. But what's that sort of give and take like as you try to figure out what works best for you so you can provide the best real Ripley for the company?

Rhea Ripley: To be honest with you, I'm sort of just being myself. It started at the second Mae Young Classic. When I first moved to America, I was 20 years old and I was still growing up as a human outside of work, let alone in work. So I was very shy. I just wanted to please everyone. And then by the second Mae Young, I stopped caring what people thought. And I was like, "You know what? I'm just going to be myself." I'm going to do what I think is good for me. I'm going to dress the way that I want to dress. I'm going to cut my hair the way I want to cut my hair. I just didn't care what anyone thought or said about me, and I've sort of been running with that and just being myself and trying to prove to everyone that they can be themselves and be comfortable at the same time. But yeah, every time I go out there, it's my genuine reactions to things. Like I said, I just go out there and I be myself and if that has evolved throughout the time, then that has, but I've also been growing up well in this business. So it's just me.

Mike Johnson: Which has to be a weird but unique blessing as well, because you're growing up, you're also growing up under the microscope of being a public personality. It has to be somewhat terrifying, then you're in a different city every night, now that we're kind of back to normal, a different place every night. I can't even imagine what that day to day experience is like.

Rhea Ripley: Yeah. It's so wild. Even just calling my parents... Sometimes I'll put them on the phone and sit them down in the car because I'm responsible. But I'll be driving to a different city. And they're like, "Where are you going?" I'm like, "To be honest, I don't know."

Mike Johnson: Just following the GPS.

Rhea Ripley: Yeah, I just put it in the GPS. I go to a random hotel. I hope it's close to the venue. I've got to drive somewhere tomorrow night too. And it's just, it's so wild. I get to grow up on the road and living my best life and living my dream.

Mike Johnson: It's going to make a great book one day.

Rhea Ripley: Yes. Hopefully.

Mike Johnson: You should keep notes or an audio diary.

Rhea Ripley: Dude, I say that every day. I'm like, "I need to start writing my day to day stuff." But I'm very lazy.

Mike Johnson: They said that's what Bret Hart did. He kept an audio diary while he was on the road. That's why his book was so great.

Rhea Ripley: Oh man, I need to do it. I do.

Mike Johnson: So we've got a lot of personalities involved in the Women's Tag Team Championship match. You've got Carmella. You've got Zelina. You've got you. You've got Liv. So many personalities. When you've got that many people who are creative, what is that process like? Figuring out what's best for everybody involved?

Rhea Ripley: So, it's very difficult but we always seem to put it together. Everyone's so different that it sort of does work in a way because... It's like a puzzle, right? Right. And you got to find the pieces that go everywhere. And there's different puzzle pieces. There's different shapes, but they all fit together in the end. So we just got to work out our puzzle. It is difficult, but there's a way to do it. And that's why we are the best in the world at what we do. And that's why we're here and we're on WrestleMania.

Mike Johnson: We talked about Liv earlier. When you found out that this was going to be the direction, this was going to be the team. What was your initial reaction, because you had just finished the whole stuff with Nikki A.S.H. and you had started that storyline?  Thoughts on Liv as a partner and kind of going for the tag team titles again?

Rhea Ripley: At the very start I was like, "Damn." I just said to everyone that I wanted to be a singles competitor again and y'all are really putting me in a tag team. So I was like, "Making me seem like a liar over here." But before our first match together, she came up to me and she's like, "Yo, bro. You want to wear my shirt?" From then, I was just like, "Okay, this might work. I like this chick. She's funny." We've known each other for five years now. We've been very close. So I think it's going to be a good mesh of personalities. And I think this will go places. So I was pretty keen on it.

Mike Johnson: See, but to me, that's not even like being a tag team. That's two singles competitors respecting each other. I remember as a kid, Hulk Hogan and Roddy Piper teaming and Hogan comes out wearing the kilt and Roddy's coming out wearing a Hulkamania shirt.  As a child, it was mind bending that this would be happening. So it's kind of almost like a little bit of throwback to something of that nature..  You're putting each other over, so to speak.

Rhea Ripley: Exactly. It's definitely a respect thing. We definitely do respect each other and know each other and are very good at our crafts too.

Mike Johnson: So we've talked about this in the past, but obviously the company's starting to travel internationally again. After WrestleMania, they're going to Europe.  How bad are you counting down and ready to go to Australia?

Rhea Ripley: Oh dude. Don't even get me started. I'm so ready. I know that we have an August tour and I've been asking people every time I see them. I'm like, "Is it still going ahead or has it been canceled? Is it still going ahead? Or has it been canceled?" And so far it's still going ahead. 

Mike Johnson: Fingers crossed.

Rhea Ripley: Dude, fingers crossed. I'm so excited to go home. I really want to. I need to see my family. Oh, man. I'm so excited and it's coming up. It'll be here right around the corner.

Mike Johnson: Well, also right around the corner is WrestleMania. Last question. What are your thoughts for everyone who's excited about this weekend? Obviously, it's going to be a lot of memories here over these couple of days. But what do you hope the audience gets out of it?

Rhea Ripley: Man, I hope that they just get to enjoy their time. They get to sit there, relax, be loose and just live in the moment because that's what WrestleMania is all about. Don't be scared to love wrestling. Where some people are, they're very reserved. Where with WrestleMania, you really just got to sit there and you got to take everything in and you got to react to things that you want to react to and just live in the moment and just be excited because we all are. Not just the fans but the wrestlers too. We're all pumped.

Mike Johnson: Well I hope you get to do just that and I hope you have a great weekend. Thank you. Everything comes out exactly as you hope. And I look forward to when we meet down the line.

Rhea Ripley: Hell yeah. Me too.

Mike Johnson: Thank you, Rhea.

Rhea Ripley: Thank you.

Rhea Ripley will be competing tonight at Wrestlemania 38 Night Two, streaming on Peacock and the WWE Network.

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