Add as a preferred source on Google Rhea Ripley remains sidelined from WWE programming due to a knee injury suffered during the company’s recent European tour.
The current WWE Women’s Champion appeared at Power Slap 21 on Friday night, where she sat down with Nina Drama and revealed the full diagnosis of her injury for the first time:
“Yeah, I hurt my knee. I got like a slight tear in my meniscus. It’s healing, it’s getting there. It’s getting stronger. I just can’t bend it very well. Kind of need to bend, guys.
I don’t know (about the recovery timeline). I tore it in a really weird spot, so it’s kind of like a little bit up in the air with just how fast my body recovers. But I’ve been out for just over a month now. I think it’s been a month and one week.
It feels better. It still starts to hurt and throb, it gets tired. I can’t get up, or bend down really slow, or kind of move side to side while crouching. So it just really gets stuck. We’ll see how it goes.”
Women's Champion Rhea Ripley has confirmed that she has a slight tear in her meniscus.
— Wrestle Features (@WrestleFeatures) July 11, 2026
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Ripley suffered the injury during Clash in Italy on May 31, when she defeated Jade Cargill to retain the WWE Women’s Championship. Her last match came three days later, at a live event in Lisbon, Portugal.
WWE confirmed her absence on the June 12 episode of Friday Night SmackDown, noting that the champion would be evaluated on a weekly basis. Still, no timetable has been set for her return to the ring.
The injury has already forced the company to adjust its plans for the women’s division. Ripley was pulled from Night of Champions, while a possible title defense against Alexa Bliss or Jacy Jayne at SummerSlam has also been thrown into doubt.
So far, WWE has shown no indication of stripping Ripley of the title. Ripley herself, however, admitted that she’s still in pain and doesn’t know when she’ll be cleared to compete again.