{"id":21995,"date":"2018-07-12T10:23:51","date_gmt":"2018-07-12T14:23:51","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lwosonprowrestling.ms.lastwordonsports.com\/?p=21995"},"modified":"2018-09-25T02:40:28","modified_gmt":"2018-09-25T06:40:28","slug":"rhea-ripley-second-name-announced-for-mae-young-classic-ii","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/prowrestling\/2018\/07\/12\/rhea-ripley-second-name-announced-for-mae-young-classic-ii\/","title":{"rendered":"Rhea Ripley Second Name Announced for Mae Young Classic II"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>The WWE announced today that Australia&#8217;s <strong>Rhea Ripley<\/strong> is the second official entrant in the Mae Young Classic II. Formerly known as <strong>Demi Bennett<\/strong> on the Australian indie scene, she was a veteran of <strong>Riot City Wrestling (RCW)<\/strong>, <strong>Melbourne Championship Wrestling (MCW)<\/strong>, and others before signing with the WWE last year before the inaugural Mae Young Classic. She&#8217;s since worked mostly NXT Live Events, but this year&#8217;s MYC could be the springboard she needs to become a regular on NXT television.<\/p>\n<p>https:\/\/twitter.com\/WWEAustralia\/status\/1017254102307205120<\/p>\n<p>From <a href=\"https:\/\/www.wwe.com\/shows\/maeyoungclassic\/article\/rhea-ripley-mae-young-classic-2018\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">WWE&#8217;s Press Release<\/a>:<\/p>\n<p><em><strong>NXT\u2019s\u00a0Rhea Ripley will make her second appearance in the Mae Young Classic, competing alongside 31 other women on\u00a0WWE Network\u00a0later this summer.<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n<p><em><strong>Coming on the heels of the announcement that <a href=\"https:\/\/lwosonprowrestling.ms.lastwordonsports.com\/2018\/07\/11\/kaitlyn-divas-champion-mae-young-classic\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">former WWE Divas Champion\u00a0Kaitlyn\u00a0will compete in the Classic<\/a>, Ripley\u2019s hometown newspaper, The Advertiser in\u00a0Adelaide, South Australia, reported that the 21-year-old WWE Performance Center recruit will also take part in the international tournament.<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n<p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" title=\"Dakota Kai vs. Rhea Ripley - Second-Round Match: Mae Young Classic, Sept. 5, 2017\" width=\"640\" height=\"360\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/bZUx4yPXOsY?feature=oembed\" frameborder=\"0\" allow=\"accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share\" referrerpolicy=\"strict-origin-when-cross-origin\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p><em><strong>Signed to the WWE PC last summer, Ripley entered the first Mae Young Classic as the youngest competitor in the field. The 5-foot-7 powerhouse defeated American Miranda Salinas with a full-nelson slam in the First Round before falling to New Zealand\u2019s Dakota Kai in a closely fought match in the Second Round.<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n<p><em><strong>The hard-hitting Ripley, who began wrestling as a teenager and competed in Japan before joining NXT, is considered one of the strongest women in the WWE PC weight room. In addition to a wide arsenal of power moves, Ripley boasts wicked striking ability, which can be traced back her extensive background in soccer.<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n<p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" title=\"Full Match:  Demi Bennett (Rhea Ripley) vs Kellyanne : Strength 2017\" width=\"640\" height=\"360\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/mddv_zMmadI?feature=oembed\" frameborder=\"0\" allow=\"accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share\" referrerpolicy=\"strict-origin-when-cross-origin\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The WWE announced today that Australia&#8217;s Rhea Ripley is the second official entrant in the Mae Young Classic II. Formerly known as Demi Bennett on the Australian indie scene, she was a veteran of Riot City Wrestling (RCW), Melbourne Championship Wrestling (MCW), and others before signing with the WWE last year before the inaugural Mae [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":649,"featured_media":21997,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_lmt_disableupdate":"","_lmt_disable":"","sfio_featured_image":false,"sfio_embed_code":"","_ef_editorial_meta_date_first-draft-date":"","_ef_editorial_meta_paragraph_assignment":"","_ef_editorial_meta_checkbox_needs-photo":"","_ef_editorial_meta_number_word-count":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[3317,2,317,5,3,320],"tags":[896,3041],"class_list":["post-21995","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-australia","category-featured","category-women","category-nxt","category-wwe-universe","category-wwe-women","tag-mae-young-classic","tag-rhea-ripley"],"modified_by":"Jamie Greer","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/prowrestling\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21995","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/prowrestling\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/prowrestling\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/prowrestling\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/649"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/prowrestling\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=21995"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/prowrestling\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21995\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/prowrestling\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/21997"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/prowrestling\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=21995"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/prowrestling\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=21995"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/prowrestling\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=21995"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}