Rhea Ripley spills the beans on Bianca Belair having Sasha Banks plates on title during NXT appearance
Speaking to Ryan Satin on Out of Character (h/t Fightful), Rhea Ripley has revealed the season why Bianca Belair still had Sasha Banks’ side plates on her SmackDown title during their NXT appearance.
Belair defeated Banks on the main event of day 1 of WrestleMania 37 to become the WWE SmackDown Women’s champion. The following night, Rhea Ripley beat Asuka to become the Raw Women’s champion.
Prior to the duo’s triumph, Raquel Gonzalez had become the NXT Women’s Champion after beating Io Shirai on NXT TakeOver: Stand & Deliver during the WrestleMania week.
It marked a huge week for the three women who began their journey on NXT. And WWE decided to create a special moment as all the three champions appeared on the subsequent episode of NXT after WrestleMania to celebrate their victory together.
It all started with a picture of the three women that Ripley posted on her social media following her victory. Deciding to make the most of it, WWE called her and Belair up to make an appearance on NXT the following Tuesday after Day 2 of WrestleMania, she revealed.
“We found out the morning of. I got a message saying, ‘Do you mind coming to NXT tonight? Bring your championship, we want to do something on TV based on the photo you posted,’ which was super cool because I just posted the photo not thinking it would blow up, but I’m glad it did. We got our moment to show everyone exactly who we are. My championship was actually in Tampa in the championship case. I didn’t bring it home because I got told to leave it there. Someone had to go pick it up and bring it to NXT. I felt so bad.”
While it was a special moment indeed, eagle-eyed fans spotted that Belair, holding the SmackDown title, was still sporting Banks’ side plates on it, whereas Ripley’s had been changed. And the Nightmare explained in detail about the issue.
“Everyone went nuts and what everyone doesn’t understand is, the day before was Monday. I was at work so my plates got changed. It hadn’t been Friday yet, so they couldn’t change her plates yet. People don’t understand that. We don’t go to work every single day. I don’t understand why everyone was losing their mind. Bianca wasn’t mad, she was like, ‘I have something that says I got it from Sasha.’ She was really happy with it. Everyone else was just mad.”
Belair now has her own side plates on the Championship, which she will defend against Bayley at WrestleMania Backlash. As for Ripley, she is set to put her title on the line in a triple-threat match against Asuka and Charlotte Flair.
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