Rhea Ripley defeated Jade Cargill at WrestleMania 42.
Rhea Ripley Def. Jade Cargill at WrestleMania 42 | Key PointsRhea Ripley defeated Jade Cargill in a very heated match to regain the WWE Women’s Championship. This was the match of the night to this point.
Iyo Sky helped even the odds against Jade and her baddies en route to Rhea’s big win.
Rhea Ripley beat Jade Cargill to capture her second WWE Women’s Championship in a great match with excellent crowd reactions for the babyface and the heel. Staying true to a feud that involved a supporting cast for both Jade and Rhea, Iyo Sky evened the odds to fight off Michin and B-Fab. Rhea won with the Riptide, dethroning Cargill after an eventful 169-day reign.
Jade Cargill and Rhea Ripley’s feud featured two polar opposites who may or may not have gotten along in real life. Personal issues reared their heads almost immediately after Rhea Ripley won the Elimination Chamber, leading to a war of words on Twitter.
“HA! I just be talking [sic],” tweeted Cargill in reference to an old clip shared by Ripley of Jade saying she’d love to wrestle Rhea. “Which member of our social team found that video for you???? Cause we know they always have to find a way to keep you 'on top’ going into mania. [sic]”
“All you seem to do is talk… And that’s literally it [sic],” Ripley fired back.
“Talk??? Like the hours you spend talking to creative? [sic]," said Cargill with the knockout blow. The exchange led to an outpouring of reaction from the women’s locker room, most notably Chelsea Green and Piper Niven who appeared to subtweet Cargill. In the midst of being outnumbered 3v1 by her white co-workers, the strong, Black and confident Jade Cargill was not phased. She never was.
“Ladies, it’s okay to pop your s—t. Be proud of what you’ve done and who you are,” read a tweet from Jade on March 29.
“At the end of the day me being skyrocketed to the top, that’s a lot on my shoulders too,” said Jade during a recent appearance on the Joe Budden Podcast. "People sit back and be like ‘oh, she got this,’ like who in the hell is going to say no? Who’s going to say no? Nobody. They’re going to be like hell yeah give it to me.”
The credibility challenged wrestling media took turns reporting whether or not the budding feud between Ripley and Cargill was real. But real or not, this became a controversy defined by a narrative that Rhea Ripley and Jade Cargill legitimately despise one another. As long as all parties remain professional in the ring, this was the perfect dynamic to get fans invested in a WrestleMania storyline.
Despite the real-life tension, the execution was tame in comparison. WWE followed the basic babyface-heel beats with Jade forming a stable of baddies alongside former opps Michin and B-Fab. The feud peaked with a fantastic, heated segment on Raw where Ripley bludgeoned Ripley’s BFF Iyo Sky with a kendo stick.
In the end, Iyo got her revenge—and even a WrestleMania moment—as she helped Ripley regain the WWE Women’s Championship.
This article was originally published on Forbes.com