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Rhea Ripley defended her NXT Women's Championship against Charlotte Flair at WrestleMania this year. She was unable to retain her title and The Queen walked away as the new NXT champion.
Within a few days, rumors spread that Rhea Ripley was having visa issues and that was the main reason why she had to drop the NXT title. The reports suggested that she had to travel back to Australia to get things fixed and thus would have been unable to compete in the ring.
However, because of the pandemic situation, things were not normal anywhere in the world. Rhea confirmed that she did have a visa issue and was unable to travel to Australia to get things sorted.
Instead, she has been completing the formalities online and getting things done from the United States itself. Rhea Ripley also revealed that she had several people from WWE reaching out and asking if she was stuck in Australia during the lockdown. Talking to Metro, she said:
“Yes, I had to do my visa but now I’m having to do it here because there’s no flights. I can’t get to Australia, and then if I was there I couldn’t get back out… I had people from work calling me like, ‘Are you in Australia right now?’ I’m like, ‘No, I’m not an idiot! No!’”
When asked if she was forced to drop the title because of the visa issues, she rebuffed all such claims.
“I sort of just laugh it off. Social media can be very negative at times. If this had been going round when I wasn’t as mentally strong as I am now, I would’ve taken it a completely different way and things wouldn’t have been as good… It’s quite funny seeing people saying that I lost because I had to go back to Australia.”
Rhea Ripley gets a shot at the NXT Women's Title this Sunday
Rhea Ripley has a chance to get her title back from Charlotte Flair this Sunday. She will be involved in the triple threat match at NXT TakeOver: In Your House along with Io Shirai.
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