Rhea Ripley: A Broken Fingernail Caused Me To Flip Off Bianca Belair At NXT TakeOver: WarGames III

Rhea Ripley had an eventful WWE Survivor Series weekend, first competing NXT TakeOver: WarGames III and then at Survivor Series.

Ripley competed inside the WarGames cage at TakeOver and battled superstars from Raw and SmackDown at Survivor Series. And while neither were easy matches, the most painful/bump hold Ripley experienced between the two bouts actually occurred before she ever entered the WarGames cage.

“It was tough definitely,” Ripley told Newsweek when asked about the toll the weekend took on her. “It was travel that got to me. Sitting on the bus and airplanes it just messes you up a little bit. But I was just living in the moment and not thinking about l that stuff. I think the worst thing that happened was when I went to get the trash cans and chairs at WarGames I broke two of my nails. And that hurts, you know? I broke them right down the middle, and I legit started bleeding everywhere. And I’m like ‘Damn, I didn’t even step in the cage yet. I didn’t know that’s why they call it WarGames, my God.’ [Laughs]. I remember going to the back afterwards and people saying ‘Did you flip Bianca off?’ And I’m like, “What do you mean did I flip Bianca off? No. What did I do?” And they told me that I started shaking my hand and put my middle finger up. And I was so confused, but it was because I broke my real fingernails and I was shaking it in pain. So it looked like I was flipping her off [Laughs].”

Ripley’s monster week actually started on the Nov. 22 WWE SmackDown when she pinned Charlotte Flair in a triple threat match. At NXT TakeOver, she pinned NXT Women’s Champion Shayna Baszler in the Women’s WarGames bout and capped off the weekend by defeating Sasha Banks at Survivor Series in the Women’s Elimination Match.

Ripley was portrayed as a heel in NXT UK, but quickly became a face in NXT when she confronted Shayna Baszler.

“It’s been weird. It’s been so strange. I would go out there and try and be the biggest prick I can be. And everyone seems to get behind me. I don’t know what it is, I don’t know why. I started to embrace it a little bit, and now it’s definitely weird because how can you guys like me? [laughs]. I just go out there and give them the show they deserve to see, and being heel or face doesn’t matter to me. I’m just going to go out and be myself, and if they like me they’ll like me and if they don’t they don’t. There’s still a lot of people who don’t like me, but they are now overshadowed by the people who do like me,” she said.

Ripley is scheduled to challenge Baszler for the NXT Women’s Championship on the Dec. 18 episode of NXT.