I suspect WWE expected the crowd in the Rhea Ripley and Charlotte Flair match to be a little mixed. After all, Flair is a more natural heel who has spent most of her career as an antagonist, and Rhea Ripley oozes talent and is also mixed up in the Dominik Mysterio plotline fans are so invested in. Based on crowd reaction in the lead-up to ‘Mania, it was also fairly obviously a minority of fans would support Rhea. But it wasn’t a minority. The WrestleMania 39 crowd overwhelmingly rooted for Rhea Ripley. Her win delivered one of the biggest pops of the night, and now, WWE has a huge decision to make.
It’s a story basically as old as professional wrestling. What do you do with a heel that’s so popular that the fans inherently want to cheer them? You can repackage them fully as a baby face, you can turn them into some kind of cult anti-hero or you can find ways to make them a bigger heel. Let me give an example of each one.
Over the last few years, Roman Reigns has turned himself into one of the greatest heels in the history of wrestling. Every single time he makes an appearance, the fans cheer and acknowledge him. But that’s more out of a matter of respect for the work he’s doing. They still root against his character because WWE continually gives us reasons to hate him. From mistreating his family to abusing Sami Zayn to acting like he’s too good for weekly TV appearances. There’s a fresh set of reasons to boo all the time.
An example of the cult anti-hero character would be Stone Cold Steve Austin. He was loud. He was abusive. He didn’t act like any babyface character we’d ever seen up to that point, but when it became obvious fans wanted to push him to the moon, WWE didn’t change his character– they changed his storylines and who he was fighting against. Instead of taking on faces, which confused fans, they had him turn his heelish wrath toward bigger heels, most prominently Vince McMahon and early versions of The Rock. Last year at 'Mania, we saw him turn it against Kevin Owens after he insulted the state of Texas.
A great example of a more full turn would be Randy Orton over the last few years prior to his injury. He’s, of course, one of the most natural heels in the history of the business, but he found a great new direction alongside Riddle, first as a skeptical tag team partner and later as someone fully invested in working as a team. His character really changed, to the point where the first thing I think of with RK-Bro is Orton on the outside, hyping up the crowd, stomping his feet and extending his hand waiting for a hot tag, which is just an all-time babyface move.
So, that brings us to Rhea Ripley and figuring out which of these categories she fits into because the answer to that will likely play a major role in both her future and the future of Judgment Day. Thus far, Triple H and company have given no indication of which path they might want to go down, but given she’s now WWE Smackdown Women’s Champion, the decision needs to be made ASAP.
Personally, I think she works better as a heel. I think fans were rooting for her because they appreciate her extraordinary talent and frankly, because they wanted to make it clear she deserves to be champion. But that doesn’t mean she should start saving little kids from the train tracks. One of the reasons this didn’t main event night one of WrestleMania, at least from where I’m sitting, is because fans weren’t in love with the story build-up.
They just didn’t really invest in the Charlotte is a star and I need to be a star narrative. My guess is that lack of investment is because they’d rather see her as a Gunther-like monster heel than someone who is vulnerable, and if she’s going to become a full-blown babyface, she’ll need to get more relatable and vulnerable. So, for me, I think they should keep her as an anti-hero or make her even more of a heel because I don't want to see her be vulnerable.
Plus, I don’t think WWE should break up Judgment Day. That stable produced three singles matches at WrestleMania this year, and with Rhea emerging as SmackDown Women’s Champion, she could step forward as the true, unquestioned leader of the faction. I’d love to see Dominik Mysterio and Damian Priest fully jump into a tag team division that looks stacked (look for them to work with Rey Mysterio and Bad Bunny at WrestleMania Backlash), and there’s no reason to think Finn Bálor won’t be competing for titles again soon. So, all the ingredients are there for Judgment Day to stay near the top of the card.
But it doesn’t matter what I think. It only matters what the WWE writers think, and it’ll likely become apparent within the next week or two what direction they want to take her character in. Rhea is a star. It's not hard to picture her as one of the faces of the company for a long time; so, figuring out how to help her realize her potential should be at the top of everyone's to-do list.
WrestleMania 39 continues this evening with a stacked card on night two. You can stream it with a Peacock subscription. Then tune into Raw and SmackDown the following week, when we should start getting our first signs of what WWE will do with Rhea Ripley moving forward.
