Rhea Ripley Beats Nia Jax to Retain Women’s World Title at WWE Elimination Chamber

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Competing in her home country of Australia, Rhea Ripley defeated Nia Jax to retain the Women’s World Championship at Elimination Chamber on Saturday.

The Eradicator kept the title with a clean pin on Jax after hitting her with the Riptide. The victory sets up a showdown between Mami and Becky Lynch at WrestleMania 40.

Lynch won the women’s Elimination Chamber match to open the show to earn a championship match on the biggest show of the year.

Entering Elimination Chamber, Ripley was approaching one full year as champion, as she beat Charlotte Flair for what was then the SmackDown Women’s Championship last year at WrestleMania 39.

Ripley rolled through every challenger placed in her path, but in recent weeks, it seemed as though she may have met her match in the form of Jax.

Mami had grown accustomed to being bigger and stronger than everyone else in the women’s division, but when The Irresistible Force returned to WWE in September, she put Ripley and the rest of the women’s roster on notice.

On the first episode of Raw after the Royal Rumble, women’s Rumble winner Bayley was in the ring and seemed poised to announce her WrestleMania opponent, but she was interrupted by Ripley.

Before the Australian could fully get her point across, Jax attacked her from behind and laid her out in the middle of the ring.

Following the brutal beatdown, Jax told Bayley that she wouldn’t be able to choose Ripley as her WrestleMania opponent since she planned to see to it that the titleholder would not make it to The Show of Shows.

One week later, a furious Ripley demanded the opportunity to get her hands on Jax, and Raw general manager Adam Pearce made a match between Ripley and Jax official for Elimination Chamber.

Jax then stormed the ring, which led to a wild brawl that not even security could contain. Once again, it ended with the challenger getting the upper hand by standing tall and leaving Ripley writhing in pain on the canvas.

Ripley got her chance at retribution at Elimination Chamber, and she took advantage of it in a hard-hitting bout in front a partisan home crowd to retain her title.

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