EPISODE 5 DUSTY FINISH

While Paige went on to feud with Charlotte, I was relegated to the sidekick role, cheering my buddy on from the edge of a ring.

Paige, being more familiar to the audience, with more relatability, was favored even if she was supposed to be a heel. Charlotte, despite being a sweet human being, isn’t the most sympathetic of characters. As she is the daughter of one of the greatest heels of all time, heeldom comes naturally to her.

And so, instead of fighting the tide, the creative team decided to make Charlotte the bad guy. But there was only one irrelevant babyface who would be endearing enough to garner the sympathy of the crowd.

You bet your sweet ass it was me! So with an odd stroke of luck and a lack of bodies, the story was changed on a random Monday in Nashville.

Paige stirred the pot between the two real-life, well-known best friends and encouraged us to have a wrestling match.

During this friendly competition, Charlotte landed weirdly on her leg, acting as though it was injured. As a good buddy, of course I was massively concerned. With me distracted by worry, she took advantage and rolled me up!

The audacity! She was faking the whole thing!

She got the cheeky win. As I looked on, flabbergasted that my friend was a real-life cheater, it planted the seeds for her to do a full heel turn. While I would be the scrappy underdog trying to take down the glorious queen.

Her dad even began accompanying her for extra arrogance as a reminder that she had that second-generation privilege.

It was just what this “revolution” needed: a likable babyface the audience could get behind, an entitled heel champion who would do anything to keep her title, and a relatable rift between friends.

I was starting to understand this storytelling thing. Despite how much emphasis I had put on how I looked or the moves I did in the ring, it was beginning to dawn on me that at the end of the day, story, and how you tell it, really is all that matters. With so much content out there today, and great wrestling content at that, matches are easily forgotten, but how people feel is not.

A good guy. A bad guy. Conflict that is engaging. It is that simple.

And in wrestling, we get to tell a story in the most engaging way possible. Through consensual violence!

We as people are so drawn to conflict—that is undeniable. You see it in the news. On social media. Or even a more appropriate example is if you went to see a concert. Say it was your favorite band. We’ll use mine here. You’re at a Pearl Jam concert, and Eddie Vedder is singing his heart out with “Black,” and it’s touching your heart as you hear the pain in his deep, gravelly voice as he sings every lyric. When all of a sudden two lads start slinging haymakers right in front of you.

I don’t care how much of a die-hard Pearl Jam fan you are or how you’ve been saving your whole life to come see them, once that happens, all your attention is on the fight in front of you.

As wrestlers, we get to do that in a very controlled manner. But when there’s even a hint of realism to it, people lose their minds.

The following week Charlotte and I were given another match, where we wrestled our little hearts out again. Only this time I thwarted a cheat attempt from the Flairs and managed a quick roll-up of my own.

Charlotte went berserk, big booting my head off (not literally: I am still with head) and pummeling the soul out of my body. The crowd lost their mind with abject hatred and the dawning of a new era had begun.

It was beautiful thing. We both played our parts and knew our roles.

Everyone could relate to having that one friend for whom everything seemed to come easy, while we struggle and try our best at every turn but are met with obstacle after obstacle. That friend you have a very conditional friendship with, who must be the star of the show, and you must be the one on the back burner.

This is what the crowd was talking about when they said, “Hashtag GiveDivasAChance,” and after six months of concerted effort to highlight women and give them more screen time, we were delivering.

All of the hype would culminate in the biggest opportunity of my career and a step in the right direction for women in wrestling. It would be Becky Lynch versus Charlotte Flair at the Royal Rumble, PPV, January 29, 2016, for the divas championship.

It was the first time the divas championship had been defended at the Royal Rumble in years. And more than that, this match was given time and a well-executed story build.

The Royal Rumble has always been my favorite PPV. In this namesake of the most exciting match in all of wrestling, thirty competitors come out at ninety-second intervals, the guessing game of who’s going to be next keeping you on your feet. Will it be someone from the past? Someone new? Your fave about to punch their ticket to WrestleMania? Anything can happen! The Royal Rumble was the PPV that kept me up till 4:00 am on a school night watching because it was so damn exciting, and I was here.

I knew I wasn’t going to win. The plan had always been Charlotte versus Sasha for WrestleMania, but it didn’t stop the fans from wanting me to win, and it sure as hell didn’t stop me from trying to prove that I deserved to be in the mix.

That even though I had been the afterthought of the division, I brought heart and soul to the table.

When I showed up at the Amway arena that fine Sunday, I had an extra bit of bounce in my step. When given the chance, I could show that I could tell a story, and tonight they were going to be taken on one hell of a ride.

Only I had no idea that I would be too.

Charlotte and I got together with our producers and came up with what, in hindsight, was a real wacky match. But we were trying to make moments here. After all, that is what our business is about.

Oh, boy, did we make moments. After much deliberation and racking our brains, it was decided that to assist the cutoff (where the heel takes over the match, thwarting the efforts of the babyface) Charlotte’s dad would plant a big auld smoocher on me.

Of course, now we can admonish someone for the idea of an elderly father violating his daughter’s young friend without consent live on pay-per-view.

But after all, he wasn’t any old dad. He was Ric Flair, the Rolex-wearing, limousine-riding, jet-flying, wheelin’, dealin’, kiss-stealing son of a gun.

Woooooo.

Not only that, but the way that Charlotte would win was that I would have her in my patented arm bar and Ric would throw his coat over my head so I couldn’t see and would let go.

So very silly, but also so very wrestling.

I felt good about all of this malarkey. If nothing else, it was fun. And even though I wasn’t winning, I was in a much more prominent position than I had been previously and we were on our way to WrestleMania season.

When all of a sudden, Lita, who was my producer that day, got word about a change to the match. Sasha, who had been out with an injury, was going to be coming back after I lost. Which was great: she’s fantastic and the fans love her. But her direction was to physically kick me out of the ring before beating up Charlotte.

It felt, in that moment, like a betrayal. I was getting kicked to the curb like I didn’t matter after building hype and giving the audience a proper underdog to root for, so that they could go to the two girls they actually wanted to concentrate on.

I was devastated but wasn’t even sure I had the right to be—I had exceeded all expectations by even making it this far. I was going to get to wrestle at my favorite PPV for a title. Maybe that should be enough.

Sure, maybe they didn’t have a match for me in the cards at WrestleMania. But Sasha and Charlotte was always the plan. And besides, none of this is real, right? So does it even matter? It mattered to me, damn it!

We went out and had our match. It wasn’t very good. It certainly didn’t live up to the hype that preceded it.

I don’t watch any of my matches back, so I couldn’t tell you all the things that I didn’t like. But I do know that Vince absolutely lost his mind in gorilla over Ric Flair kissing me. It has since been erased from history. Probably for the best.

When the match was done and I sat there dejected for long enough, Sasha’s music hit to a huge pop, i.e., ovation. She was always so damn over.

She sauntered down to the ring at what felt like a snail’s pace and kicked me out of the ring like the jabroni I was, to another huge pop. Thanks, guys.

Then, when it looked like Charlotte and Sasha had an alliance, Sasha stabbed Charlotte in the back, literally (well, kind of; her move was called the backstabber, but no actual stabbing was involved) to the biggest pop.

I sat on the outside, leaning against the announce desk, as the audience erupted in cheers and the tears streamed down my face.

I worried I was never going to get anywhere in this business. I just wasn’t The Man and I was never going to be.

“All the girls are always crying; you be the one that doesn’t do that.” Kevin Owens pulled me aside on Monday after a picture of me in tears at Royal Rumble had circulated on the internet.

“Yeah, you’re right. I just couldn’t help it.”

“You just don’t want to be that guy. Be the badass. Why were you crying anyway?”

“I told everyone that I was just so happy, that I had wrestled at the Royal Rumble and it meant so much to me. But the truth is I felt like a worthless piece of crap. Like I can only ever get so far before being reminded, ‘We don’t think you’re worth shit.’ And maybe I’m not worth shit. I dunno, man; that one just stung.”

“I get that. But it’ll pay off. I promise you that. You hear those people. They love you.”

“Thanks, Kev.”

Kev is the best, and always the man to go to if you needed cheering up. Or to have a chin wag in general.

Later that afternoon, while I was wandering around aimlessly, exhausted from not sleeping the night before, feeling like I was about to sink into irrelevancy again, it being my twenty-ninth birthday and feeling like I had reached my peak and it was downhill from here, Brie Bella interrupted my woe cycle.

“What’s their plan for you for WrestleMania?” she asked.

“I guess nothing.”

“You should be in that title match. It should be a triple threat,” Brie said confidently.

“I think they planned on Charlotte versus Sasha all along. I was just a stopgap.”

“Yeah, I know, but the crowd is into you. And it ties up the story. You three all came up together. It should be a triple threat. I think you need to talk to Vince.”

“What would I even say?” I asked.

“Well, always start with being grateful for the opportunity. But let him know you feel strongly about this and are passionate.”

“Okay. Okay. I can do that,” I responded, not sure I could do that.

“Go do it now; I think he’s free.”

“Now? You mean now now?”

“Yeah! Go!”

Oh, fuck. I wasn’t prepared for this. I had never knocked on his door to ask for anything. I never really had much of a conversation with him at all. I had, of course, witnessed other talent waiting outside Vince’s office for hours and hours at a time to try to pitch their stories and ideas to the most powerful and most iconic force in the history of the business. The guy who created Hulkamania. The guy who invented WrestleMania. The guy who had recently started his own goddamn wrestling network.

And I was about to knock on his door and ask to be given a match at the biggest WrestleMania yet.

This year the event was to take place at the Cowboys’ stadium in Dallas, which held over one hundred thousand people.

After my disgraceful performance both before SummerSlam and in the wacky way my Royal Rumble match went down, was he really going to trust me to perform at the biggest event of the year in front of a historically huge crowd?

Only one way to find out.

I stood outside his door, knees weak, arms heavy; there’s vomit on my sweater already, Mom’s spaghetti.… Okay, it hadn’t gone that far and my mom was two thousand miles away, but you get the picture.

The eccentric billionaire Vince McMahon, who was now in his seventies, was as intimidating and jacked as ever. But part of me thought that if I could get past the nerves to be able to talk to him, Vince might like me. For no other reason than I’m Irish and he’s a proud descendant himself.

I let that thought marinate in my brain for a minute as I lingered in the hallway, envisioning how this conversation might go and working up the nerve to go in.

You hear so many things about how to talk to Vince. There’s a Ulysses-length list of dos and don’ts. “Be grateful, but assertive. Be direct, and tell him how you feel, but don’t show any weakness.”

After working up the courage, I knocked on the door at an acceptable tone.

“Come in.”

Ah, fuck. Here we go.

“Hi, sir.”

“Hello.” That signature gravelly Vince McMahon voice that was very professional with a bit of “What the fuck do you want?” thrown in.

“So, first of all I just wanted to thank you for all the opportunities. It’s meant the world to me and I really appreciate it.”

“You’re welcome,” he replied, with a hint of Stop sucking up.

“And I just wanted to pitch having a triple threat at WrestleMania. I think I’ve proved that the fans really like me, and I think it completes the story of Sasha, Charlotte, and myself all coming up together.”

I have no idea how he managed to understand me because I truly was talking one hundred miles an hour out of sheer nervousness. I guess he really was Irish.

“I’ll take that into consideration. Thank you.”

“Thank you.”

And I walked out of there quick as a cat, filled with adrenaline as if I had just dived out of a plane.

But if you don’t ask, you don’t get.