Rhea Ripley shows off her incredible collection of tattoos and discusses the inspiration for her body art.
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Stream WWE on Peacock https://pck.tv/3ZTjVE7 in the U.S. and on WWE Network http://wwe.yt/wwenetwork everywhere else
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00:00And then another cheeky one, oh my god, another cheeky one.
00:05So work is definitely not going to like this story, whatever, I don't care.
00:18I was very, very young when I wanted my first tattoo.
00:20I don't know exactly what age it was, but it was probably when I started watching wrestling,
00:25to be completely honest, and started listening to the music that I listened to.
00:29My mum has a couple of tattoos, and then we have my dad, who like, he's the nicest
00:34man that you could ever meet, but he just straight up looked like a biker growing up.
00:37So I always grew up like, looking at his tattoos and like, wanting to colour them in as a kid
00:42and thinking that they were really cool.
00:44My mum wasn't really fond of me getting tattoos, but they also weren't fond of me wrestling.
00:50And then they started to love that, so like, now it's a lot easier, I just go, yeah I got
00:54another one, and she goes, can I see it?
00:56And as soon as I show her, she's like, okay that's really cool, because tattoos have come
00:59a long way since they were getting tattooed when they were younger.
01:02My dad, I don't think he really cared, because I was always the daddy's little girl, and
01:06I definitely was like, the little boy that he always wanted.
01:10So he didn't really care.
01:11My nonna on the other hand, which is my mum's mum, she did not like it.
01:17She's old school Italian, and she wasn't very fond of the tattoos.
01:21She'd always be like, oh, another one, why, no!
01:26You're making nonna feel so bad, why?
01:29That's exactly what she sounds like.
01:31She would always say it like that, and try and guilt trip me, but then also as soon as
01:35she saw it, she'd be like, oh beautiful, nonna like, yeah, nonna like, okay, okay.
01:43So my first tattoo was actually, it was this one on my wrist.
01:49And it's the date of the Evolution pay-per-view, and I went, I think the day before Evolution,
01:56I went with Toni Storm.
01:57And the funny thing about this date, and why it's so special to me, is because it was the
02:02exact same date six years prior of when I tried out for Riot City Wrestling in Australia.
02:08So it's technically the start of my wrestling career, and it's also the start of the women's
02:15Evolution, which I think was absolutely wild.
02:18So we both got matching little tattoos of the date.
02:23I not only started wrestling on this date, but it was the first time that I got to defend
02:31my NXT UK Women's Championship on a big show, because it hadn't been televised that I had
02:36actually won the championship yet.
02:38So Dakota and I actually opened Evolution to actually go out there and be the first
02:44people on the show that everyone sees.
02:47It's just, it was a really special day, and it really was the start of my awesome career
02:51here within the WWE, and my gradual change into the nightmare that eradicated the absolute
02:57brutality that you see today.
02:59Being in the tattoo chair was really thrilling.
03:02It definitely stung, and I was a little bit thrown off with that, but I was also so excited
03:08to start this tattoo journey.
03:13So I had my whole family there.
03:15I had my mom, my dad, my sister, and it was the first time that they actually got to visit
03:20me as a family again, and it felt really special.
03:22So I was like, I want to do something that's different.
03:28I want to remember this moment forever.
03:31So me and my sister, and Raquel was there as well, we all went to this tattoo parlor.
03:38It was the first time that I met my tattoo lady, Celeste, and she's done pretty much
03:42all my tattoos except the little funny ones that I got on the road.
03:46She's done all of them.
03:47So it really was the cement of that friendship and the start of this beautiful artwork that
03:53I have on my body.
03:54But the one that I got with my sister was, she got a petite one on her tricep that was
03:58a little bit the same, but it was just two hands.
04:00I got, so it's a pinky promise for me and my sister, except for she got the petite little
04:06hands with, I think she got my initials in it, in cursive, where I'm a little bit more
04:11grungy, I'm not the same style as her, so I got a skeleton hand and a really cool looking
04:16hand with a bung little nail on that one.
04:21But we got them, we got matching ones because we're sisters forever, we're sisters for life.
04:25It doesn't matter how far we go in life or what the distance is between us, we're always
04:32going to be there for each other and we're always going to love each other, so we just
04:35wanted to have some sort of memento of our love, pretty much, and I think it was really
04:41special.
04:46My most meaningful tattoo would probably be the chicken on the back of my arm.
04:51It's not just a chicken, it's like a ceramic chicken.
04:54It was a bowl that my nonna had.
04:57She had it in her kitchen and she had it in her lounge room.
05:01It kept moving around, but it was mostly in her kitchen, and she always had little lollies
05:07in it.
05:08Most of the time she had minties.
05:09It would be me, my sister, and my cousin, Jordan, because we were the youngest ones
05:14in the crew, and we would take a minty and then one of us would go into the lounge room,
05:20the other two would stay out, and we would hide the minty somewhere in the room, and
05:24the other two would have to go in and try and find the minty.
05:26So every time we'd have a family get-together, this was our game that we would play, and
05:31we'd play it for hours and we'd have so much fun, just through this chicken jar.
05:37Once she passed, all the kids in the family wanted the chicken jar.
05:44We all fought over the chicken jar, but I ended up getting ownership over the chicken
05:51jar, so it's currently at my parents' house in Australia.
05:56I wanted a piece of her with me.
05:59I felt like my other tattoos weren't really justifying exactly who she was and symbolizing
06:05who she was as a little reminder to me, because everyone's like, yo, what's up with the chicken?
06:12You have all these demon tattoos and all these cool tattoos, and then you've got a chicken
06:16on your tricep?
06:17What the hell is that?
06:18So once I tell them the story, they see how meaningful it actually is.
06:24I think it's one of my favorites, to be honest, just because how sentimental it actually is.
06:33My stomach tattoos have definitely got a lot of attention.
06:37I have the gargoyle in the middle, which everyone loved, but then I went and got these scorpions,
06:44and they were just the lining for a while, and my fans are absolutely crazy, right?
06:52They're nuts.
06:53I love them, but they're crazy, and I was in a two-second video and I had one side finally
07:02filled in, and they were like, oh my god, Rhea has one of her scorpions filled in.
07:08We need to see it.
07:09Drop the photos.
07:10We have to see it, and they started spamming me, non-stop spamming me.
07:15They were taking screenshots from this two-second clip, and then once I did sort of show them,
07:20I got the other one did, and then I hid that one too, and they're like, this is not fair.
07:23Why do you keep doing this to us?
07:25So they've definitely got the most attention.
07:28People just love them.
07:29I don't know.
07:30All the tattoos I've tried to piece them together, they're random as hell.
07:35They're so random.
07:36It makes it sort of like a puzzle, and I'm someone that loves puzzles.
07:39I like working things out, so trying to fit the puzzle pieces together perfectly where
07:44it goes with my body, and they go together with the other tattoos.
07:47It's brilliant art form.
07:49It is, but I think that's why they like the scorpions so much, because they go with my
07:53body perfectly.
07:54They sit right on my hip bones perfectly, and they're just cool as hell.
08:00I got one monster scorpion, and I got one robot scorpion.
08:06They're just different.
08:07They're cool.
08:08So they definitely get the most attention out of my tattoos.
08:12I got a couple cheeky ones.
08:14I can't even turn around.
08:17I got some Puerto Rico ones.
08:19I got the cocky.
08:20I got the mask.
08:23I got them with Friest.
08:24We got that in Germany when we went there.
08:28It's like one of those beer mugs.
08:29I can't remember what they're called, but we have the date on it and everything.
08:34This was the first Mexico tour.
08:36We got these sugar skulls, which were really cool.
08:40I added the crown to it at WrestleMania 39, because I was being cheeky, and I was like,
08:47I'm going to get a crown, because I'm going to take Charlotte Flair's crown.
08:52So now I have a crown, and that's exactly what I did.
08:55I feel like our life is just so crazy.
08:58It's so nonstop, and we're just working all the time.
09:02We're running from town to town, and we barely get any free time to look around and do stuff.
09:07I always make sure I go to the gym.
09:08That's my number one thing.
09:09I got to go to the gym.
09:10But after that, if we do have free time, and it's very rare, but if we do have free time,
09:16we try and make memories.
09:18We try and make memories, and I'm glad that the people that I surround myself with are
09:24so easygoing, and go with the flow people, and they're always down for something silly.
09:30Being this far away from home, away from family, it's really hard to be able to make my own
09:36family within my friendship circle.
09:38It means the world to me.
09:40Family doesn't end in blood.
09:42Family is who you want family to be, and it's such a significant quote from Supernatural
09:49that Dean Winchester did.
09:51I really loved it, because obviously I have my blood family in Australia, but they're
09:57so far away, so I had to make my own family here, and I really had to pick and choose
10:04who to trust, and who to let into my life, and they've become my family too, and I love
10:09them like family, and I think that's such a significant thing in my life.
10:14So I'm glad that I got that specific quote tattooed around my knee.
10:18It fit perfectly too, so it looks cool.
10:22Work is definitely not going to like this story, whatever, I don't care.
10:28SummerSlam 2023, I wasn't booked, and I wasn't really happy about not being booked, because
10:38I hadn't really defended my championship much, so what Dom and I did, we went to the tattoo
10:45parlor instead of getting on the bus to go to work, because we weren't booked, so we
10:51weren't expecting to be there, so we're like, we've got a free day, we've only got tattoos.
10:57We went and got ghosts on our thumbs, so we have matching ghost tattoos on our thumbs
11:04to symbolise us not being booked, and then when we sat down to get tattooed, we got cold
11:11and we were booked.
11:14So we had to run back, well we definitely took our time, I was like, yeah, we'll be
11:17there when we'll be there.
11:19We went out and we helped Finn and Priest, but yeah, that's the ghost tattoo, sorry.
11:28There was two tattoo artists, the one that actually drew the design did mine, and the
11:32other guy did Dom's.
11:34Dom's came out looking so much better than mine, and mine, I can't even say what mine
11:41looked like, okay?
11:42Be creative with your mind, I'm not saying it on camera, because now you guys are just
11:47not going to unsee it if I tell you what I saw in it, but it was ugly, and I got Celeste
11:52to go over it and make it look like a ghost instead of what I was seeing.
11:58So I like it now.
12:09When you start getting tattooed, every part of your body that doesn't have a tattoo looks
12:14naked, like it doesn't look right.
12:17Then I get photos, and this leg isn't in the photo, and this one's like chopped off here,
12:21and I'm like, I have no tattoos, I have none, why do I look like I have no tattoos?
12:25I don't like that.
12:26We always try and tell stories as best as we can, that's our job.
12:30It's really cool to see how far tattoos have come in WWE, especially for women.
12:35At the time that I started, there wasn't really any women with tattoos.
12:39I feel like I've sort of stepped in that role, and I'm showing that tattoos can be
12:44beautiful, and you can have tattoos, and it doesn't really matter.
12:47It doesn't define who you are, why am I getting judged by the art of my body when you should
12:52be judging my personality and what I do?
12:55You should be watching me wrestle and going, oh, she's a good wrestler.
12:58You should be watching my program and be like, oh, she's a good talker, oh, she's good at
13:02her job, don't judge me on my tattoos.
13:04It's really cool to see how far everything's gone, and it's got to the point of me having
13:09to jump through hoops and hide my tattoos and hide my personality, in a way, to now
13:16you see it on action figures, you see it in the game, you see it on WWE 2K, you see it
13:22in COD.
13:23It's so cool to see, and me and my tattoo artist talk about it all the time.
13:26We send the photos back and forth, and she's so stoked that her art gets to be in something
13:33where it can live forever, in a way.
13:35Me telling the story through my tattoos is also telling everyone about everything that
13:40I've gone through in this long journey, and it's not only symbolizing the growth of Bria
13:47Ripley and what I've accomplished, but it's also documenting the little things that I've
13:54done in between, which is really cool.