WPXI-TV just had to make a pretty brutal correction to the viral Rhea Ripley impersonation scam story — because the $427,000 figure that sent wrestling media into overdrive was apparently off by one very important zero.
The Pittsburgh station originally published that a 64-year-old Pennsylvania man had lost $427,000 to someone pretending to be Rhea Ripley. Ringside News and several other outlets picked up the story directly from WPXI’s original report, and naturally, a fake WWE star allegedly walking away with nearly half a million dollars spread like wildfire. Then WPXI changed the number.
The station’s story now says the victim lost $42,700 — not $427,000. That means the original report overstated the alleged loss by $384,300. The updated version now reads:
“Troopers said an unknown person or persons were portraying themselves as WWE wrestler Rhea Ripley. They were able to get $42,700 from a 64-year-old man through this scheme.”
That is a massive difference, and the correction came after the original version had already been picked up by multiple outlets and gone viral across wrestling media.
The wild part is there was already a giant red flag sitting right in WPXI’s own headline. The headline said the man lost “over $40K,” while the article body claimed the total was $427,000. Somehow, that huge mismatch made it through publication anyway.
Ringside News cited the $427,000 figure because that was the number WPXI had published at the time. Once WPXI changed its own story to $42,700, it became clear the original viral total was wrong. The core scam story itself hasn’t changed.
There is nothing connecting Ripley herself to the scam beyond someone allegedly using her identity. She has dealt with fake material tied to her name before, including when she personally called out an AI-generated WWE image being passed around as real, but this situation is obviously on another level.
What do you make of WPXI publishing $427,000 before changing the number to $42,700 after the story had already spread everywhere? Let us know what you think and leave your feedback in the comments.
