EPISODE 2 THE ROAD WARRIOR

I loved life on the road—the big arenas, massive crowds, getting in rental cars and road-tripping across America. It didn’t matter that we worked fifty-two weeks a year, on the road four or five days a week, a different city every night. I had energy for all of it and no one waiting for me at home.

It felt like a full-time scavenger hunt, looking for the healthiest places to eat, the best place to get coffee, gyms, even the little things like finding a well-priced hotel in the towns we went to or good deals on rental cars. Stopping in gas stations and loading up on snacks still felt like a thrill.

Every week was a mini-adventure that nourished my wanderlust soul, even better because I was doing it with my best friend, Charlotte. Rocking out on car rides to Adele with her, sharing updates on our love lives and often lack thereof, and fantasy booking the shows, we were living the high life.

I had heard a lot of people who got called up to the main roster had a hard time adjusting and preferred the lifestyle NXT offered. There you had the stability of sleeping in your own bed every night, having more time in between big matches to prepare, plan them out, and practice in advance. Story lines were thought out at least four weeks ahead of time.

Life on the main roster was much more chaotic. The show is in creative flux, ever-changing. The direction may change multiple times over the course of the day. Sometimes it is even being rewritten while the show is live on TV.

Because of the live nature, you have to learn how to adjust matches to the times you’re given so that you can hit commercial breaks while getting beat up, performing high-risk moves, finding the right camera angles, and looking like you’re not flustered by any of this. It is a wild circus unlike anything else and I love that about it. And sometimes I hate that about it.

The communication channels can be hard to navigate. There’s you, then there’s a team of writers, producers, creative consultants, and then there’s Vince. Sometimes things get lost in translation or never make it up the chain.

I had my first experience with this kind of miscommunication when we needed a name for our new gal-pal group.

Sasha, Naomi, and Tamina came up with the cool name of Team B.A.D.

The Bellas and Alicia Fox were Team Bella, for mostly obvious reasons.…

We were asked to submit name ideas, so each one of us made list upon list of possible group names. Our lists were ignored completely and WWE gave us the random name of The Submission Sorority. Something about Paige’s gothiness and my steampunkiness didn’t exactly scream “sorority,” but there we were. We voiced our concerns but were quickly shut down.

Whoever came up with this genius name and cleared it through all the channels seemingly missed the rather arduous task of “quick Google search,” however, and as soon as our group name was mentioned on TV, it sent people right to the ol’ interweb, where they swiftly came upon a rather prolific adult website.

The shout-out on TV drove their traffic numbers through the roof. But it was maybe not the most wholesome name association for the leaders in this women’s revolution. Alas, we could no longer be The Submission Sorority. However, the owner of the site was so grateful for the soar in website views that he sent a nice fruit basket to Vince as a thank-you. I think everyone won, really.

In the end, and after much deliberation, creative insight, and concentration, they came up with the very original name of Team PCB, i.e., Paige, Charlotte, and Becky. But you got that already, didn’t you?

The first order of business in this turf war was the upcoming pay-per-view Backlash. A member from each team was assigned to represent in a triple threat to determine, em, greatness.

My first WWE PPV on the main roster. I had made it.

Well, sort of. The other girls would wrestle. I’d watch, standing ringside, cheering on my teammate Charlotte.

The upside of not wrestling on my first PPV was that I got to be out there and experience the environment without any of the stress. I could actually take it all in. And so I did… to a certain point.

I looked out on the giant sea of humans and was gobsmacked to see there were signs for me in the crowd already! I hadn’t even done anything sign-worthy.

While I was standing ringside, slapping the mat, twinging with jealousy, there was even a small “We want Becky” chant.

I didn’t know what to do. Selfishly, I loved it. I wanted it to grow, and if I had turned to embrace it, it would have. But I had a conflicting internal monologue.

I don’t want to take away from their match. That’s going into business for myself. But they dig me.

So I gave them a quick head nod of acknowledgment and went back to being invisible lest anyone notice me and I get in trouble for it.

The end came. Charlotte won. Team PCB was claiming this turf for the right of PCBers everywhere!

We did it! We were on the main roster and making PPVs and getting Ws.

Even though I was essentially a valet on most occasions, I was happy to get out of NXT. It always felt like anxiety to me. I associated it with the fear of not being good enough, or that my dreams could be taken away on any given Friday. It had broken me down and built me back up again, and maybe I could walk into this new life on the main roster with a new level of confidence, be seen as a big deal, show them that I’m not a fuckup… except it wasn’t going to be that easy, was it?