Jade Cargill might not be champion anymore, but she’s come a long way from being the greenest AEW prospect anyone has ever seen.

I’m not sure what I was expecting from Cargill’s WrestleMania outing with Ripley. I figured Ripley would win, but I didn’t think that Cargill would -for lack of a better term- make me into such a believer. She’s often been compared to Lex Luger, since he was also a superathlete who spent a lot of his early days in over his head in wrestling, but like Luger, she is growing into a confident powerhouse, who is aware of her own limitations.

Strong women in WWE can be very hit or miss, but Cargill is proving that she comes from the Chyna/Jazz ass-kicker vein of powerhouse, and as her confidence grows, so to do her abilities. There were numerous times I was prepared for Cargill to get the win, and maybe someday down the road she will. She’s a perfect foil for Ripley, as many women can’t stand toe-to-toe with her the way that Cargill can, and there were glimmers in her match on Sunday that showed she could be sticking around the business a lot longer than her critics predicted.