Becky Lynch: The Man: Not Your Average Average Girl

by Rebecca Quin

My mom gave me hope I was going to grow up to be a babe. My dad diluted the gene pool enough for me to know I had to work on my personality.

I was also the only girl in the class. It was strangely comforting. I had gone from being the least fit girl in my PE class to suddenly being the most fit girl in my wrestling class. Absolute worst-case scenario, no matter how bad I might be at this, I would still be the best girl here.

Last thing you ever want to do is affirm your parents’ perfectly rational fears.

As someone who had never really tried at anything in life, except maybe chasing boys, I found it was rewarding to learn that hard work does indeed pay off.

one of the UK’s most respected wrestlers, Doug Williams. “No more abs?” he asked as if I weren’t a teenage girl with a complex. More tone-deaf than malicious. “No, Doug. I have a fucking eating disorder and was killing myself” was what I wanted to say.

I had the X factor. Someone on MySpace told me so.

“I know I’ve been all over the place. I’m sorry. I can’t do this. I’ll get a normal job. I’ll go back to college. Please. I’ll be normal. I promise I’ll be normal. I just want to come home.” “You have dropped out of everything and you haven’t seen anything through. You can’t do that this time.” My heart sank. My stomach tightened; tears poured down my face; my voice strained. “Please, Mom, please. I don’t want to be like this anymore,” I begged and pleaded. “I’m sorry.” She hung up, leaving me in a cocoon of dread. Lost, alone, broken, and feeling like a complete failure. I had ruined my life for the sake of abs. For the sake of trying to fit into a mold so that I might be more worthy of my dreams. The dreams I had already been on the path to fulfilling.

perfect, I was told that for our first-year play we were going to be doing an adaptation of my all-time favorite book, Animal Farm by George Orwell. I ran a victory lap of the classroom before the teacher and now director, Susie, continued, “There won’t be any auditions. You’ll do that for your third-year play. I’m just going to cast this one.” Oh, great, I thought, aware that I wasn’t one of her favorites. The next day, she posted the cast list on the wall, sending everyone clamoring to see their position, some yelping with delight, some rolling their eyes. When the mob had dissipated, I approached the list with bated breath and scrolled down to see my name: REBECCA QUIN—COW NUMBER 2. Not even Cow number 1. Cow number 2. “Number 2” being a euphemism for shit. I was cow shit.

For the more-than-one-hour duration of the play, I knelt on the ground, avoiding actual cow shit and waiting to deliver my one big line. “My udder is about to burst!” Then it was back to staring at the ground and pretending to chew the cud. Thoughts that I was once a regular main eventer in Japan or even that I gave up my well-paying job that brought me around the world swirled around my head.

Maybe I could show her that I could have an impact on the wrestling business. Change the way women’s wrestling was viewed, usher in a new era. Sure, it was ambitious, but it wasn’t impossible, and what is life if not for taking big, bold risks, especially when it can change the outlook of a generation?

If you looked around on that day in July 2013 and had to pick one person who 10 million percent was not going to make it, I would have been that person.

Women were getting time to tell stories and have the type of matches that men were. Whereas on the main roster the divas, as they were called, were getting three minutes for their matches. If a match was to lose time or get cut completely, the ladies would be first on the chopping block. Not in NXT, though.

Wrestling can be the most adventurous, exciting whirlwind romance that you’ve ever had. It can also be an infuriating, soul-crushing, heartbreaking relationship too. But as with all relationships, so much of it is how you react.

I love a good shoulder chip. Sometimes I think I just invent them to keep me on my toes. Again, horrible way to live in terms of happiness but works great in wrestling.

As I’ve matured in the business, I realize it’s all just waves; you catch the big one when you can and ride it till the end; then it’s time to wait for the next one. But you can’t be constantly on top of a wave, ’cause, well, that’s not how surfing or this metaphor works.

This whole story line was killing me as a babyface and I couldn’t wait to get out of it. To this day I still go, “Lads. What were you thinking?” And they’d probably go, “You try writing two live TV wrestling shows every week for fifty-two weeks a year with no vacations and little thanks and see how you like it!” To which I would retort, “Fair point.”

In the story, she was supposed to be the good guy. But everyone could identify with my story. The one who always tried their hardest. Was never the best, or the strongest, or the most naturally gifted, but who had heart and fire and fight. They knew what it was like to be passed over for that promotion or not asked to that dance. Charlotte’s story was much less common. Most people aren’t born into fame, or a multitime champ, or built like a goddess. The storytelling was all wrong. I knew it, and she knew it. But it worked in my favor.

Charlotte was having a hard time with this angle and our relationship was becoming strained.

Charlotte wasn’t happy with things I had said in interviews—for example, calling out WWE’s historical preferential treatment of buxom blondes, thinking I was taking digs at her in real life, or social media posts I made. While I was trying to make this story as realistic as possible and go as far as I could with it. Which, admittedly, was often too far.

I never apologized for it or tried to squash the matter. I admittedly was rejoicing in my newfound success and thought she was being a baby. In hindsight, I could have been more sensitive, or more forthcoming.

I was hitting all platforms with intent. And that intent was to get people to care. Promos, social media, interviews, everything matched, as I was “living the gimmick,” i.e., playing the character outside the confines of our TV shows. I often pushed the line, seeing how much I could get away with, and oftentimes taking terrible advice, especially as it pertained to social media and mean-spirited tweets. I do regret a lot of what I put out there during that time. I know controversy creates cash, but it also creates resentment and feelings of self-loathing. Proceed with your mean tweets with caution.

And when I say Charlotte is strong, she is freakishly strong. With one strike in Melbourne, Australia, in front of fifty thousand people, she hit me so hard that it severed a nerve on the left side of my mouth that took almost five years to recover. Actually, I just looked in the mirror. I’m not sure it fully recovered.

Through sips of stout and small handfuls of peanuts, he didn’t sell a thing. As fathers tend to do. Never allowing me to get the full scope of the situation.

Soak it in, I repeated to myself. Am I soaking it in enough? Is this the right way to soak it in? No matter where you go, there you are. There will always be insecurities; there will always be doubts.

“Look, Vince, I’m really sorry. I mean it. I didn’t intend to do that. I fucked up the spot. I’m sorry. I want to say it won’t happen again, but shit, sometimes I fuck up.” He immediately softened. “I’m Irish too. I fuck up all the time!” He laughed.

But I had one condition that needed to be drilled into Vince’s head. “Becky can’t just be Seth’s girlfriend.” “Ha-ha! Becky’s not Seth’s girlfriend! Seth is Becky’s boyfriend, ha-ha-hah-ha-haa-hah!” Vince exclaimed, laughing in hysterics.