Rhea Ripley On WWE 2K26, Iyo Sky And Why A Royal Rumble Win Would Be 'a Happy Feeling And A Sad Feeling'

Two years after returning to the WWE, CM Punk has rewritten his legacy with a list of accomplishments that already challenged his initial run. Punk has rocketed up the roster and won the World Heavyweight Championship on two occasions, he’s main-evented WrestleMania, and for the second time he is now the cover star of WWE 2K26. In doing so, Punk joins the likes of Rhea Ripley, Roman Reigns, Cody Rhodes and Bianca Belair as WWE athletes who have earned the honor to feature on the annual series.

“Oh man, it’s insane,” Ripley tells Uncrowned, reflecting on her own recognition of being named a WWE 2K24 co-cover star alongside Belair.

“It’s like how hard you’ve worked throughout the year has been noticed and appreciated, and it’s taken to that higher height where now everyone’s going to see your face whenever they go into a Target or a gaming store. You’re going to be everywhere.”

This year’s game features a slew of enhancements mostly focused on what you can do and who you can wrestle with. With a heavy emphasis on the Attitude Era, the game features its biggest roster ever, boasting more than 400 playable characters. It also includes a slew of new match types that defined the Attitude Era like I Quit, 3 Stages of Hell, Inferno and Dumpster matches, along with an all-new 2K Showcase mode centered around the standard edition cover star, Punk. The latter spotlights Punk’s favorite matches throughout his career, his dream matches that never were, and an interesting “What If…” twist that guides players through an alternate timeline where he never left the promotion.

Of course, “What if” moments aren’t unique to Punk. For nearly every star on WWE’s roster, there’s a variety of situations where things could have gone drastically different.

“My biggest, ‘what if’ would have to be what if Tegan Nox didn’t get injured? That’s my big one, because if that didn’t happen, I don’t know if Rhea Ripley would be here,” Ripley says.

Nox was Ripley’s opponent in the 2018 Mae Young Classic and expected to advance in the tournament. But after Nox tore major ligaments in her knee just minutes into their match, Ripley instead advanced in the bracket and went on to face Iyo Sky. Their match was a highlight-reel showcase and helped pave a path to the NXT UK Women’s title, the main roster and eventual superstardom for Ripley.

Ripley has gone on to put together an exceptional career in the years since she burst onto the scene, winning multiple world championships and having exceptional matches that include Uncrowned’s 2025 Match of the Year against Sky and Belair at WrestleMania 41.

Rhea Ripley, Bianca Belair and Iyo Sky made magic at WrestleMania 41.

(Ethan Miller via Getty Images)

“I love that match and I’m so glad that everyone else loved it just as much,” Ripley says. “For it to be Match of the Year for so many different outlets is just absolutely insane. For something that didn’t have the best build to ‘Mania, but had such potential for us to go out there and be like the three from NXT, finally get to step into the ring, but at WrestleMania all together for the Women’s World Championship, it just had so much meaning to all of us going in there.

“Then for us to actually pull off such a caliber of a match was just absolute insanity. I remember being in that match and I remember so much about that match, and living in the moment and feeling that excitement from not only the crowd around me, but from everyone in the match too. We just knew it was special from the get-go pretty much. And to see it held at such a high caliber for everyone is just, it’s insane. I’m very proud of that match, and honestly, it’s probably one of “my favorite matches that I’ve ever done.”

From bitter, long-term rivals to now tag-team championship partners, Ripley is alive in the moment alongside Sky. She admits they’ve “respected the hell out of each other since Day 1.”

“There’s always that respect there, but it’s a competitive respect,” Ripley continues. “And we both feel it, and she rubs it in my face every now and then [that I haven’t beaten her]and I can’t blame her because I’d be doing the same. And the one time that I do finally beat her, I will be rubbing it in her face as well.”

While Ripley is enjoying momentum in the tag-team division, it only feels like a matter of time before she’s back in the main-event scene.

Will Saturday’s Royal Rumble provide the perfect opportunity to catapult Ripley back to the title picture? She managed to go from No. 1 to winning it all previously. At the same time, she’s having a ton of fun with Sky and acknowledges a return to a solo run that would require a different Ripley than we’ve seen in recent months.

“I am literally going out there and I’m cheesing because I just makes me cheese, and I’m like, I don’t know if I’m ready to be the serious Rhea again. Am I going to have to shift that drastically if I were to win the Royal Rumble? Which is something that obviously I want too, because I would love to go for the Women’s World Championship again. And I’ve never wrestled Stephanie [Vaquer]and then also we have Jade Cargill,” Ripley says.

“So it would be a happy feeling and a sad feeling. Especially because my dream is to also have that big singles match with Iyo again. And even though we’re friends, I still want to beat her ass at one point.”

Future matches with the likes of Sky, Cargill and plenty of other challengers are there for the taking. But waiting for Ripley is what feels like an inevitable showdown with the current Women’s World Champion, Vaquer.

Ripley has been one of the shining stars to rise from NXT, elevated into arguably the face of the women’s division and one of the biggest stars on the roster. But Vaquer’s meteoric rise is a next-in-line situation that serves to challenge the standard Ripley has established as the top draw.

“It’s been crazy because she’s moved through WWE so quickly, so extremely quickly. And to stand there as Women’s World Champion and literally, what, like a year ago she was still in NXT? That’s nuts. That’s unheard of. So I’m proud of how far she’s got because that doesn’t happen with everyone,” Ripley says.

“That’s very special talent that happens with. And I’m looking forward to the day that we do get to step in the ring together. I don’t know when that day will be, but I am looking forward to it. I think that it’s going to be a great challenge for me and our styles are different… so I’m intrigued to see if we can make magic or not.”

With the likes of Vaquer, Trick Williams and the slew of young talent rising to the occasion, WWE is full of emerging names. It’s difficult to estimate which talent making the leap has the tools to become transcendent stars, to hold multiple world championships, and maybe even to eventually become a WWE 2K cover star.

“Who do I see? Honestly there’s so many. You never know what kind of year someone’s going to have. So anything is really possible,” Ripley says when asked to predict who she thinks is a future cover star.

“I know he just came back, but Austin Theory is such an amazing athlete and he’s so good at what we do in this profession. So I’d like to see him on a cover at some point, I think that would be awesome. And then you see someone like even Bron Breakker, like the athleticism that man has is nuts. Literally he flies through the air, tackles someone and keeps flying. I don’t know how that is a thing, I just don’t know how it’s physically possible. And with The Vision and how that’s all going with Bronson [Reed] in there too — I can see something happening with all that and maybe the whole group being on the cover as well, just like The Bloodline was. That could be really cool. “So maybe those guys.”