The spooky phase that almost ruined everything
If you rewind the tape back to early 2022, Rhea Ripley was completely lost in the shuffle. It seems ridiculous to say now, but the powerhouse who had bullied her way through NXT and captured the Raw Women’s Championship at WrestleMania 37 was stuck in absolute neutral. She was teaming with Liv Morgan in a throwaway tag team, smiling way too much on camera, and slowly fading into the background of a division utterly dominated by Becky Lynch and Bianca Belair.
Then came the heel turn. Then came Edge.
When Ripley officially joined The Judgment Day at WrestleMania 38, helping Edge defeat AJ Styles, it felt like a desperate lifeline. But let's be totally honest about those first few months. The Edge-led version of the faction was a bizarre, gothic melodrama that nobody asked for. They literally sat on thrones in the middle of the ring. They bathed in cheap purple lighting. They cut meandering, exhausting promos about the mountain of omnipotence.
It was painfully slow television. Ripley was doing her absolute best to look menacing, but the whole act felt like a high school theater production of a vampire movie. If things had stayed that way, Judgment Day would be remembered as a massive creative flop, right up there with the Retribution debacle or the Nexus invasion. Instead, WWE pulled the plug on Edge, and everything changed overnight.
The coup that changed the industry
Kicking Edge out of his own group in June 2022 was the best thing that ever happened to Rhea Ripley, Damian Priest, and Finn Bálor. Without a Hall of Famer casting a massive shadow over every single segment, the group was forced to sink or swim on its own merits.
They immediately ditched the supernatural nonsense. They stopped trying to be the Ministry of Darkness and started acting like a gang of obnoxious, leather-clad bullies who hung out in the clubhouse and caused chaos. It went from a bad comic book to Sons of Anarchy in a matter of weeks.
This is where Ripley finally found her voice. She wasn't just a silent enforcer standing in the background anymore. She became the absolute glue holding this dysfunctional group together. When Bálor and Priest bickered like children, she was the one snapping them back into line. She was visibly having a blast, smirking at ringside, and physically getting involved in men's matches in a way we hadn't seen since Chyna's absolute peak in D-Generation X.
She wasn't taking bumps from the guys, but she was definitely dishing them out. The visual of Ripley completely manhandling male roster members broke the traditional rules of WWE television, and fans ate up every single second of it.
Nuclear heat and the birth of Mami
You literally cannot talk about Ripley's ascent without talking about Dominik Mysterio. When Dominik finally turned on his father at Clash at the Castle in September 2022, the collective groan from the internet wrestling community was audible from space. Nobody on earth thought this awkward kid had the chops to be a top-tier heel.
Ripley made it work through sheer force of will. The dynamic between the absolute badass Ripley and the cowardly, mullet-sporting Dominik was pure comedic gold. She whispered in his ear. She shielded him from physical harm. She practically carried him out of arenas when things got too hot.
The Mami moniker started as a throwaway joke, a cheap way to mock Eddie Guerrero's legendary I'm your Papi catchphrase. It accidentally became the most marketable piece of merchandise of the decade. The heat Dominik generated every time he picked up a microphone was deafening, but it was Ripley who gave the act its legitimacy. Without her physically standing between Dominik and whatever babyface wanted to tear his head off, the whole gimmick would have fallen completely flat.
More importantly, the pairing allowed Ripley to showcase a totally different side of her personality. She was arrogant, dismissive, and fiercely protective of her useless boyfriend. She bodyslammed Luke Gallows. She stared down Solo Sikoa without blinking. She made Kevin Owens completely lose his mind on weekly television. The crowd was supposed to hate her, but they couldn't help but marvel at her undeniable screen presence.
The WrestleMania coronation she actually deserved
All the brilliant character work in the world doesn't matter if you can't deliver between the ropes. Ripley's momentum heading into early 2023 was a runaway freight train, and WWE finally capitalized by having her win the Royal Rumble match from the number one spot.
That incredible performance set up a clash with Charlotte Flair at WrestleMania 39. This was a necessary creative exorcism. Three years earlier, at WrestleMania 36, Ripley lost the NXT Championship to Flair in front of exactly zero fans at the empty Performance Center. It was a completely deflating loss that derailed her momentum for a long, long time.
The rematch in Los Angeles was an absolute masterpiece of professional wrestling. It remains one of the most physical, brutal, and flawlessly executed women's matches in WrestleMania history. The terrifying release German suplexes, the top-rope spots, the sheer violence of every strike—it was exactly what a title match should look like.
When Ripley hit the Riptide off the middle rope to win the SmackDown Women’s Championship, it wasn't just a basic title change. It was a definitive, undeniable changing of the guard. The massive stadium crowd erupted for the clear heel. The Judgment Day had completely taken over the industry, and Ripley was their undisputed crown jewel.
The booking failure of her title reign
But this is where we really need to be critical of the creative team. As brilliant as the Judgment Day run was for Ripley's individual star power, WWE completely fumbled her actual championship reign. They dropped the ball in spectacular fashion.
For months after WrestleMania 39, Ripley was easily the hottest act on Monday Night Raw. She was on our screens multiple times a night, opening the show with her faction, interfering in main events, and carrying the red brand on her back. But her actual title defenses? They were complete and utter afterthoughts.
WWE fell into an incredibly lazy booking pattern. Because Ripley was so incredibly busy managing the daily drama between Priest, Bálor, and Dominik, the writers just forgot to book her in compelling feuds of her own. She defended against Zelina Vega at Backlash—a fantastic, tear-jerking emotional moment for Vega in Puerto Rico, but a match with zero actual suspense.
She essentially squashed Natalya in a bizarrely brief match at Night of Champions. Even her later feud with Raquel Rodriguez felt completely rushed and heatless. Ripley was presented as such an insurmountable monster that none of her challengers felt even remotely credible. She spent an incredible 380 days as champion, but you would be extremely hard-pressed to name more than two memorable title defenses from that entire run. She elevated the Judgment Day to the moon, but WWE failed to elevate the rest of the women's division around her to make the reign matter.
Transcending the faction and the future
Despite the incredibly lackluster title booking, Ripley's superstar aura never faded for a second. If anything, it grew stronger by the week. The crowds simply refused to boo her anymore. Every single time her music hit, the arenas absolutely exploded. The merchandise sales went completely through the roof.
She reached that extremely rare Batista-in-Evolution level of stardom. The faction had served its ultimate purpose. It had taken a highly talented but completely directionless wrestler and wrapped her in a presentation that highlighted every single one of her strengths while hiding any weaknesses. By the time the inevitable cracks in the Judgment Day finally began to show, Ripley simply didn't need the group anymore.
The eventual betrayal by Dominik and the complete explosion of the original faction was just the final stage of the rocket booster safely falling away. She was suddenly the biggest babyface in the entire company without having to change a single, solitary thing about her edgy, violent character.
Now, as we stare down the barrel of WrestleMania 41, the main event picture of WWE is radically different. The Bloodline saga continues to mutate into new forms. Cody Rhodes is heavily entrenched as the top dog on SmackDown. But Rhea Ripley stands completely alone as the biggest female star the company has arguably ever produced.
She isn't just a great women's wrestler. She is a foundational pillar of the entire global promotion. She main events premium live events, she consistently moves television ratings, and she commands a level of organic respect from the audience that simply cannot be manufactured by writers.
When she walks down that massive ramp at Allegiant Stadium next month, it will be as a fully realized icon. The black lipstick, the spikes, the unapologetic brutality—it all works perfectly because we watched her build it, piece by piece, over the last four years.
The Judgment Day will go down in professional wrestling history as one of the most successful stables of the modern era. They successfully resurrected dead careers, generated massive merchandise revenue, and firmly anchored Monday Night Raw during a wild transitional era. But their absolute greatest legacy will always be simple: they gave Rhea Ripley the exact platform she needed to take over the world. And she didn't miss.
