Team Rhea Ripley lands fifth member ahead of WWE Survivor Series WarGames
11/26/2024 06:46 AM
Heading into the 2024 edition of Survivor Seriesand its premier matches, WarGames, there was one question on every WWE fan’s mind: who would be the fifth member of Team Rhea Ripley?
Initially, the answer felt rather obvious; Jade Cargill and Bianca Belair were locked in, as were IYO SKY and Naomi, but shortly after Rhea Ripley was announced as the team’s fifth, “That Chick” was taken out with a kayfabe injury to cover up for a real injury, leaving the team down four to five.
Fortunately, as Paul Heyman broke down the week prior on SmackDown, you can’t have four on five in a WarGames match, and after some subtle speculation online, with everyone from Charlotte Flair to Becky Lynch hypothesized as the group’s fifth member, it ended up going to Bayley, who was Naomi’s pick all along.
That’s right, after watching Belair get into it with Nia Jax in the match designated to decide on who gets the advantage in the WarGames match, things looked dire for Belair before Bayley ran out to the ring to help even the odds, taking down the Woman’s Champion before setting up “The EST” for the win.
Now, on paper, Bayley feels like the obvious choice to join the team, as she’s been feuding with Jax, Tiffany Stratton, and company for months now and has a history with the vast majority of the women in the match. With that being said, does she really add any drama to either side of the match? She’s on good terms with Naomi, has nothing much against Ripley, and the one person she might be feuding with, SKY, has seemingly turned babyface out of nowhere and is likely cool with Bayley as a result despite betraying her at the end of their shared Damage CTRL tenure.
While the ceiling of her addition may not be as high as someone like Lynch or Flair from a drama standpoint, it does raise the floor of the match all the same, as Bayley is a better worker than Cargill and has more connective tissue to the members of the match than most available options on the proverbial board.
HERE FOR THIS.#WWERawpic.twitter.com/PXseaD3BNC
— WWE (@WWE) November 26, 2024
Bayley took Jade Cargill’s WarGames spot due to a legitimate injury
After WWE showcased Cargill taken out on the hood of a car, the promotion took to social media to lay out a series of injuries meant to make it seem like she could be out of action for a very long time.
“BREAKING: Jade Cargill has been diagnosed with the following injuries,” WWE wrote on social media. “Deep Lumbar Paraspinal Muscle Contusions, Bruised Kidney, Sprained MCL in her right knee, Tibial Plateau Bone Bruise of her right knee, Facial Lacerations. There is no timetable for her return.”
Sounds bad, right? Well, that’s likely intentional, as it’s meant to cover up for a legitimate injury that could keep Cargill out of action for the foreseeable future, as Dave Meltzer explained in the Wrestling Observer.
“We did get confirmation that Cargill is injured,” Meltzer wrote. “but the severity wasn't known internally past those involved in creative were told it will be a minimum of three months out, maybe longer, which is why they released the story of such severe injuries.”
If Cargill was healthy, would she have been replaced by Bayley? No, probably not, but hey, do you know what? Good on WWE for making the most of a bad situation, as the “Role Model’s” addition to the match was about as good a 1B as the promotion could ask for.
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