Rhea Ripley hated Buddy Matthews; AEW star reveals shocking relationship details

Rhea Ripley and Buddy Matthews are one of wrestling's biggest power couples, but the beginning of their relationship was rocky. Matthews recently revealed that the former Women's World Champion hated him before they met.

Ripley and Matthews both came up on the Australian independent scene, but the AEW star was already well-established before The Eradicator got her start. In a recent appearance on INSIGHT with Chris Van Vliet, Buddy Matthews detailed their early history.

When asked how they met, Matthews revealed that Ripley had watched him wrestle on the indies. The Hounds of Hell star played a villainous character back then, and he claims that Rhea hated him—especially after he struck a female star with a vicious forearm in the ring:

"She [Ripley] used to watch me when I wrestled in Australia," said Matthews. "Yeah, she was in the crowd, and she HATED me. And she still, to this day—there was this girl, her name was Sway, and I was a heel back then, so one of the angles was she did something, and I just rifled this forearm off on her and dropped her. She thought—she's probably scarred by this, but she remembers it. She hated me." [From 7:19 to 7:44]

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Buddy Matthews warned Rhea Ripley about her ex-boyfriend

Despite wrestling for the same promotions in Australia, Buddy Matthews and Rhea Ripley didn't cross paths until they were both on WWE's roster, and their earliest interaction wasn't exactly pleasant.

In the same interview on INSIGHT with Chris Van Vliet, Matthews revealed that, while they missed each other multiple times on the indie scene and in NXT, he does remember delivering a warning to her about her then-partner, who had been rubbing people the wrong way:

"My last show in Adelaide was her first show, she worked for the merch, and she started working that show. I moved to America, started NXT. When she came to NXT, I went to 205 Live. I had maybe one interaction with her, which I had to tell her something about her, uh, partner, at the time, because he was rubbing some people the wrong way. So I had to go, 'Yeah, just maybe don't bring him in anymore.' So, that was our only interaction," Matthews said.

Despite the early dysfunction, Buddy Matthews and Rhea Ripley are now happily married. Whether they ever step into the ring together remains to be seen.

About the author

Jacob is an AEW contributor and editor at Sportskeeda Wrestling. He has edited and published over 8,000 articles for Sportskeeda Wrestling in just over two years, and subsequently donned the hat of a contributor, demonstrating his commitment to continuous learning. His experience goes beyond wrestling, with five years as an editor for several independent publishing houses and three years as a captioning specialist.

Jacob's first memory of pro wrestling dates back to Sting vs. Ric Flair for the World Heavyweight Championship at Great American Bash 1990. He later began writing for a newsletter and blog at the University of North Texas, and his love of wrestling naturally led him to seek opportunities in the media.

His favorite wrestler is The Icon, as he feels Sting has evolved throughout his career on a parallel path with his own growth as a person. He was Jacob's childhood hero and teenage idol, and now he makes him less afraid of getting older.

Jacob ensures relevance and accuracy in his articles by working hard to maintain his ideals and objectivity without sacrificing his unique voice, inspiring other writers in the section to follow suit.

Jacob’s non-wrestling interests include Anime, video games, and fantasy novels.

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Edited by Jeevak Ambalgi