Rhea Ripley and IYO SKY will clash for the WWE Women’s World Championship at Evolution 2025, and while this is way from the primary time Ripley and SKY have shared a hoop, their upcoming match in Atlanta is widely expected to be one other stunning entry of their catalogue of contests. Starting with their tenures in “WWE NXT,” “The Eradicator” and “The Genius of the Sky” have eight years’ price of history preceding Saturday’s premium live event; from the Mae Young Classic semifinals to WrestleMania 41 and beyond, that is the story to date.
Ripley and SKY first competed in a WWE ring in 2018, when SKY (then named Io Shirai) defeated Ripley within the Mae Young Classic tournament semifinals — she would go on to lose to Toni Storm within the MYC finals at the primary Evolution event. While 2019 saw SKY and Ripley debut in the ladies’s Royal Rumble, face off in women’s WarGames, and team as much as take down the important roster at Survivor Series, they would not meet again in singles motion until 2020, when their second-ever televised singles match led to a no contest when NXT Women’s Champion Charlotte Flair attacked them each. That arrange a triple threat for the title at NXT Takeover: In Your House, a match that gave the impression to be over when Flair bridged Ripley into the Figure 8 submission, just for SKY to hit Ripley with a moonsault off the highest rope and pin her to win the championship.
WarGames and WrestleMania
Later in 2020, SKY successfully defended her title against Ripley in a 22-minute singles classic on “NXT” TV; by that point the 2 had grown a mutual respect for each other, and so they closed the 12 months by teaming up for the 2020 women’s WarGames match in a losing effort. They were separated after that as Ripley was called as much as the important roster early in 2021, while SKY remained in “NXT” until SummerSlam 2022; strangely, the following time they shared the ring was in one other WarGames match, two full years after the last one, with SKY and Ripley again teaming together and again losing. They finally hit the WarGames jackpot in 2024, when for the primary time, they were on the identical team and won.
In March 2025, throughout the build-up to WrestleMania 41, SKY and Ripley wrestled their first singles match in greater than 4 years. Having reclaimed her Women’s World Championship from Liv Morgan on “WWE Raw’s” Netflix debut, Ripley defended the title against SKY on the March 3 episode of “Raw.” In a shocking turn of events, SKY ended “The Eradicator’s” second WWE Women’s World Championship reign after Bianca Belair’s ringside presence distracted the champion; a subsequent rematch with Belair as special guest referee led to a double disqualification when the three women couldn’t keep their conflict at bay. The feud culminated in a triple threat match at WrestleMania 41, where SKY retained her title by pinning Belair.
Ripley’s quest back to the highest catches SKY’s eye
After SKY’s WrestleMania 41 win, she and Ripley went their separate ways, only sharing a hoop once more on the May 12 episode of “Raw,” where they teamed against important roster newcomers Giulia and Roxanne Perez. As SKY’s championship reign continued, Ripley tried to claw her way back to the title contention scene through the 2025 Women’s Money within the Bank ladder match and the Queen of the Ring tournament; nevertheless, she did not secure the briefcase and was knocked out of QOTR contention early due to the meddling of The Judgment Day’s Raquel Rodriguez. Finally, after caring for Rodriguez at Night of Champions, Ripley arrived on the June 30 episode of “Raw” intent on declaring her desire for a championship match.
Because it turned out, she would not must. Before Ripley could make her case to the gang, SKY emerged onto the doorway ramp, saying she’d been given the ability to decide on her challenger for Evolution 2025. SKY offered Ripley a title opportunity in Atlanta, claiming that she desired to face “one of the best,” and that Ripley was her technique of doing so. Ripley accepted respectfully, but promised to withhold nothing in her quest to reclaim gold. And he or she shouldn’t — the reigning champion is the one demon Ripley has yet to conquer, having proven unable to beat her in seven previous meetings. Will July 13 be the day “The Genius of the Sky” finally falls to “The Nightmare?”