Rhea Ripley Threatens Charlotte Flair & Reveals The Best-Kept WWE Secret About Non-Televised Matches

With a little more than a week remaining until WrestleMania 2023, Rhea Ripley still has plenty to say to the WWE Universe.

The wrestling world is still reeling from Rhea's recent unsettling and creepy encounter with some men who stalked her at the airport earlier in the week. However, her words have shed much-needed light on the serious topic of a WWE Superstars' right to privacy, what is and is not acceptable for fans to do, and how the WWE Universe can better respect the men and women who entertain them daily. 

As it turned out, during our conversation with her earlier this week, Rhea Ripley pushed forward past the controversy and talked with us about other topics.

RELATED: Rhea Ripley Sounds Off On 'Entitled' Fans Who Harass WWE Superstars for Autographs

First, we had to talk about the elephant in the room: namely, WrestleMania itself and Rhea's mindset ahead of the highly-anticipated SmackDown Women's Championship match against Charlotte Flair. Although, to be honest, based on the brawl that went down last week, we had a sense of what kind of emotions were going through her head:

In her usual candid and open style, Rhea didn't hold anything back when giving her thoughts on the upcoming title match.

"This is going to be a very heated match," she said. "Charlotte and I, we've got our history together. She beat me at my first WrestleMania for my NXT Women's Championship. She's taken my RAW Women's Championship away from me. She's sort've been the speed bump in my career. But I'm a different Rhea Ripley now. Going into this match, I don't care what she or anyone else thinks about me, I'm going in there for one thing and one thing only: To absolutely destroy Charlotte Flair. I'm going to take the one thing that makes her feel so special and so important in this company — and once I take the SmackDown Championship from her and I hold it over my head, she's going to feel so incomplete without her crown and that's the moment that everyone will realize there's a new wave of women here in WWE. The new generation is taking over."

These are chilling, almost prophetic words from Rhea. To ape one of Paul Heyman's famous sayings, was this a prediction from the Eradicator ... or a spoiler?

From there, the conversation turned a little more lighthearted as we brought up the countless photos of Rhea that constantly make the rounds on social media — which Rhea herself often shares. We don't know what it is, but fans can't get enough of Rhea, as she may be the most photogenic Superstar the WWE Universe has seen in quite some time. But, most importantly, it looks like Rhea is having fun whenever she is in the ring or supporting her Judgment Day mates from the ringside. So naturally, we had to ask: Is this the most fun she's ever had in her career?

"I've been having the time of my life," she told us. "And I think everyone can tell, because I've got the cheesiest smile on my face, I'm reacting to things, I get to play around with Dom Dom, with Finn, with Priest, we're all having the times of our lives — and being menaces while doing so. It's definitely been one of the funnest times in my career — just going out there with the boys, you just know it's going to be a fun time because you know you're going to get away with so much mischief."

Interestingly enough, many of these photos circulating on social media are from non-televised WWE live events, which made us wonder: Is there something about these live events that fans should know about?

As it turns out, there is. And Rhea was gracious enough to let the world in on one of the best-kept secrets in the WWE Universe regarding live events.

"It's definitely more interactive at live events for the fans. When it comes to television, we have to cater to the camera and the wide audience watching at home as well as the fans in the arena — in addition to having a million things going through our heads at once. But when it comes to these live events, the fans do see a different side of us. We are going out there and we get to muck around a little bit more and get to have more fun. We interact with the crowd at these live events more because it's only them — there's no cameras filming live TV at all, so it's just us in the moment with them. It just feels different, it's fun; sometimes I'll steal someone's popcorn or drink, maybe untie a fan's shoe, rip up a poster here and there, it's all a bunch of fun."

So there you have it, WWE Universe. If you think Rhea Ripley is entertaining on TV, check out her antics at a WWE live event, when she can express herself without worrying about TV cameras catching her every move

With that, it was time to let Rhea return to preparing for her match with Charlotte at WrestleMania. It's important to remember that we're still technically on the Road to WrestleMania, and there's still plenty of time for twists and turns along the way! We hope Rhea and Charlotte go a little easy on the pre-WrestleMania brawling because the WWE Universe deserves both Superstars to be at 100 percent for their big showdown. 

Catch up on all things WWE Universe on Peacock.