SPECIAL EDITION: I Met Triple H and Rhea Ripley
Plus a live review of WWE Elimination Chamber 2024
On the 22nd of February, I had the huge opportunity to meet Triple H and Rhea Ripley in Perth, Western Australia. When I started this blog nearly a year ago I didn’t think I would be posting about meeting two of wrestling’s biggest stars so soon, but here we are. It was a complete surprise that I never saw coming. So let me tell you how it all went down.
I was already pretty pumped to be attending Elimination Chamber as it was being hosted in my home town. We had managed to score seats pretty close to the ring, and I was making a plan on how I would get my hands on some sweet merch to remember the occasion. Little did I know, I was in for the shock of my life. A few of my mates were able to pull some strings, and, on the Sunday before, let me know that I would be meeting Triple H and Rhea Ripley in person that week during their media tour. Yeah. I’ll be honest, I was absolutely speechless (though I might have used some colourful language in my excitement), and had to take a minute to process what was happening. I genuinely had to ask if it was a joke, but no, it was happening! Once I gathered my thoughts, I made a plan about how I wanted to roll. I was keen to get my WWE books signed, wanted to give them both notes to express my appreciation for their work, and also thought it might be nice to wear a Motorhead (one of my favourite bands) shirt in honour of Lemmy and his close friendship with Triple H.
The few days leading up to the meeting were full of anticipation, and when the day finally arrived it was a crazy mix of emotions. We arrived a Hit WA radio station, and were escorted through the building to the main studio where the radio hosts would be interviewing the special guests. A special shout out goes to one of these hosts, Allan, who kindly arranged for all of this to happen when one of my mates reached out to him. Then, the moment arrived. It was awesome. I first met Rhea, who was really lovely and asked if I wanted to hold her belt. Obviously, I said yes. I can’t remember exactly what I said to her, because it was all a big blur of excitement. Then I got to meet and shake hands with a man I have admired since I was a young kid. Triple H came over, and we ended up having a great conversation about a few different things, including my shirt. He is a really nice, genuine person, and I felt grateful that he took the time to have a chat. I still can’t believe it, to be honest. We got to then stay to watch their radio interview. Once this was done, we all went to leave, and Triple H came and said goodbye to me especially on his way out of the door. Legit, I felt like a million bucks. It only really all sunk in once I stepped out of the building and on to the street that I’d just met these absolute megastars. Then, Triple H shared a picture of us together on his Instagram story, and I could not believe it. I’m still in shock!
The rest of Thursday was spent recovering from the morning’s madness, and Friday the hunt was on across the city for a men’s world heavyweight championship belt in the merch stores. Our mission ended up just outside Optus Stadium, where we were able to catch some of the press conference with Triple H, Rhea, and Grayson Waller. I ended up with the belt I was after, plus a whole bunch of other great things like two shirts, a signed Cody Rhodes picture, and a program.
That Friday night I attended a local wrestling show called Dude Where’s My Ring, and it was a great way to get pumped for the big event the next day. The crowd was great and the wrestling was impressive. Harry Dux’s match was a particular highlight, and I am keen to get into more of these events moving forward.
Then, Saturday rolled around, and I was stoked. After navigating the madness of the crowds on the way into the venue, we ended up sharing an elevator with none other than announcer Mike Rome. He was great, and really funny too. Once we reached our floor we made the way to our seats, which were pretty close to the ring and meant we could see heaps of the action. It was incredible to be amongst over 50,000 other fans from Perth and across the world, and the atmosphere was electric. Throw in the lights, the production, and the fireworks? Mind-blowing. Even my mates watching from their home said it was awesome on TV too.
The event was great. I loved both the women’s chamber match and the men’s tag team match especially, because the technique shown in both were brilliant and had me on the edge of my seat. The ‘Tiffy Time’ references made me laugh, Liv Morgan had a standout match, Tiff Statton’s launch off the pod onto the other wrestlers was brilliant, and the win by Becky Lynch was impressive. In my note to Rhea I told her to definitely keep one eye open for Becky at Wrestlemania, and turns out I was right about that, as they will now be facing off there in April. The men’s chamber match was pretty chaotic, with lots of carnage. My highlight, despite being a huge LA Knight fan, was a surprise appearance by AJ Styles who appeared and hit Knight with a chair out of nowhere. A hell of a plot twist, but still awesome. It was also epic to see Cody Rhodes in the flesh. Nothing quite like tens of thousands of fans screaming “wo-ah” during his American Nightmare intro song. I did expect The Rock to appear at some point, given rumours online, but oh well, let’s see what happens in the coming weeks and at Wrestlemania. For the finale of the night, everyone was rooting for Rhea as she defended her belt against Nia Jax. It was definitely a tense match, and you could tell where the crowd’s favour was. In the end, Rhea retained her title, and was celebrated by her fellow Aussies with huge cheers.
Although I didn’t want it all to end, I can safely say this was one of the best weeks of my life. As a life-long wrestling fan, it was surreal to get to experience all of this, and it’s just added to my passion for wrestling even more (if that was even possible).
I give this experience 5 out of 5 stars (obviously):
