Former WWE Divas Champion AJ Lee has recalled her WWE tryout and says she paid to attend, adding that she feels that she wasn’t supposed to be successful in the company.
Lee had a stellar career in WWE, rising from the early days of NXT to go on to become at one point the longest-reigning WWE Divas Champion in history. In 2012 AJ Lee was a part of the Raw main event scene as she intertwined herself in a love rectangle story involving Daniel Bryan, Kane, and her now-husband CM Punk. It was also during this time that Lee was named Raw General Manager during the Raw 1000 broadcast.
Since hanging up her Chuck Taylors, AJ Lee – also known as AJ Mendez – has become an author, penning her own autobiography Crazy Is My Superpower, which was released in 2017.
Speaking on State of Mind with Maurice Benard, AJ Lee discussed her early days going into the company and says when she started with the company, she was hardly the prototype of women’s wrestling in the company at the time:
“Yeah. I mean, especially when I started, it was like, the prototype was Pamela Anderson. That’s what the women looked like, or familiar with Chyna? It was like you had to be an Amazon woman or a sexpot, and I’m neither.”
“I also paid to try out, which is such a gimmick, but it worked. I got hired. I don’t think it was supposed to. I don’t think I was supposed to succeed. I think I was, you know, good in the ring, and I was supposed to train other girls that were way hotter to go to TV, and then I just got really lucky where I got popular with the fans.”
AJ Lee also bravely spoke about her battle with mental health struggles and how a phone call helped save her life.