Rhea Ripley faced Dakota Kai at WWE Evolution on a special day.
In 2018, WWE held its first-ever all-women’s premium live event called Evolution. The show took place at Nassau Veterans Memorial Coliseum in Uniondale, New York. It featured stars from across WWE brands like Raw, SmackDown, NXT, and NXT UK.
At the show, Rhea Ripley represented NXT UK as the brand’s Women’s Champion. She defeated Dakota Kai in a dark match. Years later, Ripley reflected on that moment during the SummerSlam Kickoff 2025 and called it one of the biggest highlights of her career.
“Honestly, Evolution 1 was a massive history-making event for us women in this industry, and to have a second one, man, we’re just getting started. But going out at Evolution 1 and facing against Dakota Kai, and it being for the NXT UK Women’s Championship, it was one of the highlights of my career.”
The match also held special meaning for Ripley because it happened exactly six years after she began her wrestling career.
“It’s funny actually, because the day of Evolution 1 was the exact same day that I started my wrestling journey in Australia for Riot City Wrestling six years prior. It’s wild how history repeats itself and just everything lines up so perfectly. Your destiny is your destiny. But right now, the women’s destiny is Evolution 2. We are going to take over this company and we are going to take over that pay-per-view. We are going to absolutely kill it.” [H/T: WrestlingInc]
Rhea Ripley explains why she didn’t think success was possible
Speaking on Insight with Chris Van Vliet podcast, Rhea Ripley explained why she didn’t believe early on that reaching this level of success was possible. “Honestly, no. I always talk about my Riot City Wrestling try-out, and it’s funny, because my coach, he went around the room after the try-out and was like, ‘Where do you want to go in wrestling?’ He asked everyone in the tryout, and everyone said, ‘I want to make it to WWE.’ He straight up got sick of that answer.”
“He’s like, ‘I don’t want to break your heart or ruin your dreams, but that’s probably not going to happen. We’re in Australia. We’re very, very far away. WWE doesn’t really come here, so making it to WWE is going to be extremely difficult and probably won’t happen.’ So for me, I was a little bit realistic about that, and I was like, I just love wrestling. I find it fun, I find it entertaining. I like going out there and entertaining a crowd and showing people that they can do whatever they want to do. Especially a female in such a male-dominated sport. I liked that challenge.”
Read More: Rhea Ripley Reveals Original Pitches For Her WWE Ring Name
