WWE's Rhea Ripley And AEW's Buddy Matthews Get Engaged
Highlights
- WWE and AEW stars Rhea Ripley and Buddy Matthews are engaged, despite representing rival promotions.
- Ripley is a two-time women's champion in WWE, while Matthews was released by WWE in 2021 and joined AEW in 2022.
- AEW and Matthews have taken shots at Ripley's on-screen romance with Dominik Mysterio, mocking their fictional pairing.
WWE and AEW might be competitors, with Triple H even making headlines recently for calling AEW a secondary promotion, but that hasn't stopped two of their top stars from finding love. Rhea Ripley, WWE's Women's World Champion, took to Instagram to announce that she is now engaged to her boyfriend since 2022, one third of AEW's World Trios Champions, Buddy Matthews. Ripley's Instagram post showed the two on a beach, Ripley's ringed finger lying across Buddy's shoulder. In the caption, Ripley wrote, "1000x YES! Pure F**king happiness!"
Though they don't work together now, Ripley and Matthews, both from Australia, once did. Ripley has been with WWE since 2017, where she's now a two-time women's champion and arguably the biggest star in all of women's wrestling. Buddy Matthews spent several years in WWE as Buddy Murphy. He joined the promotion in 2013, working in NXT as part of Blake and Murphy, before becoming a Cruiserweight Champion, and later a Raw Tag Team Champion during his partnership with Seth Rollins. Matthews was released by WWE in 2021 and joined AEW in 2022.
Buddy Matthews And AEW Have Had Fun With Rhea Ripley's On Screen Romance With Dominik Mysterio
Though Rhea Ripley has been with Buddy Matthews since 2022, she's also been linked to another man since that time, with her brilliant pairing with the heat magnet Dominik Mysterio in Raw's Judgment Day faction. As kayfabe is very much dead, AEW and Buddy Matthews have had fun taking shots at the fictional pairing. Back in February, Dominik addressed Matthews' controversial WWE gimmick where he kissed Aalyah Mysterio, with Dominik saying of Buddy, "Yeah, well, he kissed my sister, so I don't know, we might have some problems there family dynamic-wise, but overall I think my dynamic with Mami works both ends, on my side and on her side. When we're at TV, it just works out for us." That same month, Matthews took to Twitter after a WWE segment and addressed Mysterio, saying, "Mami has a Real Papi also!"
Of course, then there was the AEW segment between The House of Black and The Acclaimed at Double or Nothing this year, when during Max Caster's entrance rap, one line included, "Buddy's acting all ominous, when he's getting c**ked by a kid named Dominik." Ouch.
Ironically, Rhea Ripley isn't the only one in WWE's power couple to get engaged to someone else this year. Back in January, Dominik posted his own beach engagement photo to Instagram, where he was shown holding hands with his new fiancé, Marie Juliette Virissimo, his high school sweetheart. We can only hope that WWE and AEW have some fun with Rhea Ripley and Buddy Matthews' big news.
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