Jade Cargill is not a product of the WWE machine.
Rhea Ripley is.
The WWE Women’s Champion elaborated on this belief during an appearance on the Joe Budden Podcast to promote her upcoming title defense against “Mami” on “The Grandest Stage of Them All” at WrestleMania 42.
Additionally, “That B*tch” claimed that Ripley was not her first choice for an opponent for WrestleMania this year, and how she felt WWE fans seemed to react bigger when she and Charlotte Flair would face-off.
Featured below are some of the highlights from the interview where she touches on these topics with her thoughts.
On how Rhea Ripley was not her first choice for her title defense at WrestleMania 42, and how she felt crowds reacted better to she and Charlotte Flair face-offs: “It was just, we’ve always teased Charlotte Flair since day one,” she said. “And every time I had a face-to-face with this girl, we got a huge reaction. I’ve had maybe two face-offs with Rhea. The reaction, it was a total difference in reaction here. I would think that we’ll build more to Rhea because we don’t have history. Not saying Charlotte and I have history, but there’s been more of a reaction with Charlotte and I having attitude and yelling at each other than that.”
On why she thinks WWE ultimately decided to go with Ripley instead of Charlotte for her opponent: “I believe the reason why we went this route is because it’s more money that’s going to be made going against Rhea.”
On Ripley being a ‘product of the machine’ and being ‘backed’ and ‘built by WWE’: “I want to say this .. I want to say this: Yeah, she’s great. She’s great. But, however, she also is backed and always has been built by WWE. She came from the indies. Yes, she went to NXT. Her character has developed along the way. If you see how she looked when she first got into wrestling to now, it’s a huge transformation. But also the machine does that for you. It pushes you. It helps you try different things, you know, and she goes out there and she delivers every single time. So, you’re going to do nothing but invest more and more and more. I’m raw. My first match ever was on TV. Like I just said, I didn’t go through the indies. I didn’t go through all the training. I didn’t do all that. My NXT was AEW.”
Also during the interview, Jade Cargill addresses criticism of her fast rise in WWE: “I can care less, guess what, I’m getting paid …”
WrestleMania 42, featuring Cargill vs. Ripley for the WWE Women’s Championship, is scheduled to take place on April 18 and April 19 from Allegiant Stadium in Las Vegas, NV.
