Rhea Ripley's replacement revealed?

In 2024, Rhea Ripley has faced a series of unfortunate events. Despite starting the year strong by defending the Women's World Championship twice, things took a turn for the worse.

After WrestleMania 41, she sustained an injury and following her return, was unceremoniously removed from The Judgment Day. Additionally, her attempts to seek revenge on Liv Morgan have proven unsuccessful. Now, she is sidelined again due to another injury, which led to her replacement at WWE Crown Jewel 2024.

This week on NXT, Rhea Ripley was attacked by Liv Morgan and Raquel Rodriguez while in a parking lot. Subsequently, it was revealed that she would be on a hiatus to recuperate from the attack. The planned assault was incorporated into the story to provide a reason for The Eradicator's absence, which stemmed from a right orbital socket fracture she sustained on an earlier episode of RAW. Due to Ripley's injury, there will now be a fatal-four-way tag team match instead of her participating at WWE Crown Jewel 2024.

Dave Meltzer of the Wrestling Observer Newsletter recently reported that the initial plan was to have Rhea Ripley take on Raquel Rodriguez at WWE Crown Jewel 2024. The match would have likely served to further The Eradicator's storyline with Liv Morgan. After all, beating down the champion's bodyguard is certainly one way to guarantee another match with Liv at a future PLE. Unfortunately, the injury forced the company to scrap those plans and instead replace it with the fatal-four-way match for the Women's Tag Team titles.

It certainly would have been great to see Ripley in action in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia. Now, we will just have to wait and see if Triple H and the top brass save this match with Rodriguez for another day.

Liv Morgan laughed after learning about Rhea Ripley's injury

Although she did not really cause Rhea Ripley's injury, Liv Morgan seems more than happy to take credit for it. The Women's World Champion has been rather smug since she "beat" Ripley with a bat in the parking lot of the WWE Performance Center. After all, she cruelly mocked The Eradicator in a social media post captioned "Rhea Bloody Ripley," with an emphasis on the "bloody."

However, she didn't just stop there. News of Ripley's fractured right orbital socket was announced yesterday, and Morgan reacted almost immediately. Happy to see her arch-nemesis suffering, she responded to the official tweet from WWE with a laughing emoji.

To call her cruel would be a gross understatement. Nevertheless, Ripley will be back, and when she does, Morgan will do well to remember everything she's said because Ripley is no doubt keeping the receipts.