Rita Stone reflects on her history-making moments.
Over in Australia, Rita Stone is widely known as the current SLAM Women’s Champion. She’s also know for being a history maker in multiple instances. During a recent interview with WrestleZone’s Ella Jay, Stone specifically looked back on her crowning moment as the first female Newy Pro Middleweight Champion in November 2024. This came after the Australian star defeated Adam Hoffman in a match unifying the Newy Pro Women’s and Middleweight Titles.
“That was honestly pretty awesome because I obviously started at Newy and I’ve been one of the only girls really there for a few years now,” Stone said. “Obviously we had Jess [Troy] and Charli [Evans] but they have moved to more PWA. They’ve obviously moved closer to there. It’s just really been Albie [Anne Troska] and I there for the past couple years so we’ve only really had to each other to wrestle or other guys and everything. It just felt silly that the women’s belt, there’s not many not many story lines or anything you can do with that. It’s all about progressing and changing too, so it was pretty awesome that I was the one that got to do that, especially with Hoff.
“Hoff’s my trainer there and we’ve had our tags and whatever else, so it was nice to do it with Hoff,” she continued. “It was actually a really fun match. We really tried to build a story around the match at the start. He would keep throwing me out and I kept coming back in, having that build, so it was awesome to have that. Then the moment when I won it, it was so loud, so crazy. Everyone was so happy. They obviously want the woman to unify the belts. It was an awesome moment.”
Unfortunately, Stone’s reign as Newy Pro Middleweight Champion would be fleeting, as Leo Tempest unseated her later in the same show. Still, she remains in the history books as the first woman to ever hold the respective title.
Rita Stone makes more history in New South Wales
Five months before that reign, Stone made state history by taking part in the first ever Iron Woman Match in New South Wales, Australia. Her opponent? “The Violence Artist” Charli Evans, who took Stone to a close 3-2 finish at IWA’s Take No Prisoners event.
On a more personal level, Stone believes this bout with Evans helped rejuvenate her passion for wrestling, especially after trudging through a tough period of time.
“I had a bit of a rough patch with wrestling where I was not into it anymore, I’m not having fun. Then I kind of was like ‘Okay, this year I’m going to have fun.’ Then I’m working my way to finding myself and this kind of led to this storyline and this match,” Stone recalled.
“I remember just really feeling like this is where like I’m going to be better, I’m going to make myself better. Having Charli Evans there to really help me, she’s done them before in the UK, so she had experience of how to help me put it together and think of all these different interesting ways to keep people engaged for half an hour. It really helped me for the second half of the year because it really helped build who I was and sell in all these different kind of ways that really helped me made me feel more confident and comfortable in myself too.”
Watch our full interview with Rita Stone:
