Rhea Ripley: Dominik Mysterio & I ‘barely talked before this whole Judgment Day thing’

From their first moments on-screen together last summer, back when Dominik Mysterio was his father’s mostly silent babyface partner, it seemed like Dom & Rhea Ripley had chemistry.

That’s only grown over time, as The Judgement Day duo have become WWE’s act we most love to hate. And to hear Rhea tell it, that’s all natural. The WWE Women’s World champion told USA Today’s Under The Ring podcast that she & Mysterio barely knew each other before they started working together.

“We barely talked before this whole Judgment Day thing. Like we said, ‘Hi, how are you’, and that was about it. But watching our chemistry just sort of blossom and grow week by week and we’re getting more comfortable with each other, which is fantastic. It’s been really fun, and also getting to watch him grow as a performer and blossom and get more confident week in and week out has been very rewarding as well.”

So what does Ripley credit their chemistry to?

“I feel like since we’re both like around the same age — I’m 26, he’s 25 — I feel like our minds are very similar and we just want to go out there and be chaotic and be menacers and just have fun, so that’s pretty much what we’re doing. We’re just going out there and we’re having fun and reacting off of each other and growing our bond. I think people are seeing that in a way, and it makes it easy for them to follow and it makes it easy for them to understand what’s going on. I think it’s been fun for people to see how much we’ve grown together, but we’re having the time of our lives.”

She also talked about Dom’s already legendary heat with crowds, and how proud she is to be a part of his development as a pro wrestler:

“Being out there while he gets booed is quite deafening. It’s really cool to hear. I can’t even hear what he’s saying when he’s talking next to me on a microphone. That’s how the crowd can be and I’ve never heard someone get such a reaction so quickly like Dom does. The only time I’ve heard a loud reaction like that is obviously at like WrestleMania or a PLE.

“It’s very rare that I hear the crowd get that loud for someone, especially so quickly, like he doesn’t even have to say anything. It makes me very proud knowing how much he’s grown. I get emotional every now and then just because he’s come so far and it’s been real cool to be a part of it.”

We’ll take a brief break from booing Dom Dom to be impressed by this, then it’s right back to heckling the crap out of him.

H/t WrestlingNews.co for transcription