EPISODE 14 I AM THE MAN

I was going to be facing Charlotte for the SmackDown women’s championship at the Hell in a Cell PPV.

The audience was already invested in this domestic spat between two former best friends, and I pushed it as far as I could to make sure it felt real, wanting every match to have that “big-fight feel” about it. 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.

Charlotte and I put our title match together rather sloppily. The underlying and somewhat untalked-about tension between us was like a pink elephant in the room.

I knew I was going to win in the end, so how we got there didn’t bother me. Even though this was a new character and I would have to adopt a new style to fit, I wasn’t worried about how to make myself look strong or outdo her. In fact, I always think it’s beneficial to try to make your opponent look as good and strong as possible. That way, if you win, you’ve overcome an obstacle, and if you lose, well, my god, did you have a hill to climb. Taking Colby’s advice from a year earlier, I had found different ways to “get my shit in.”

On this night, September 16, 2018, over two years since winning my first and only title in WWE, I would be winning my second. Only now I was in a much better position than before.

I won by catching Charlotte quickly by countering a spear and turning it into a pin. One, two, three.

Creative suggested that she try to shake my hand afterward and I, cocky as ever, refuse and taunt her by rubbing the title in her face. That’ll get the people booing! they thought.

It did not. If anything, it made them cheer more. They liked that I didn’t care about anyone’s approval. In real life, I wish I could be like this. I imagine a lot of other people did too. That’s why it worked.

This story was outlined to go until the end of October, culminating in a last woman standing match at the first-ever all-women’s PPV, Evolution, set to take place on Long Island. Giving Charlotte and me three PPVs to work together: Hell in a Cell, Super ShowDown in Australia, and the blowoff match at Evolution. There was enough story to give the audience something they could sink their teeth into, and likely not too much that they would be sick of it. And maybe, just maybe, we could emerge from all of this and be friends again.

We already had great chemistry, but it was getting better with every match we had. As friends, we hit each other hard, but as enemies, we beat the shit out of each other. 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.

I hoped the giant swollen lump that was protruding by my lower lip was going unnoticed until Daniel Bryan while midconversation after the show blurted out, “Was that always there?” while crouching down and squinting to get a close look at my slightly deformed face.

“No, I was hoping no one would notice. I got hit in the mouth.”

“Yeah, I can see that. And no, it’s definitely noticeable.”

“Thanks, Bryan.”

Fuck.

Good thing my character didn’t care how she looked or what anyone else thought of her. Rebecca Quin did, though, so it took me a long time before I could watch myself talk again.

With all the steam I had been gathering since SummerSlam, the company was doing everything they could to capitalize on the momentum. They were even bringing back wrestling legends for me to work with. They scheduled a promo for me to go up against Edge—someone who had been vocal about his support of me on my rise to this point. His career had ended abruptly some years earlier as the result of a neck injury, so seeing him back in a WWE ring was a coveted event. And for me, as a fan who admired him greatly since I was an angst-riddled teen, it “reeked of awesomeness.”

Edge, beloved as he was, was tasked with getting the audience to boo me. Surely with me opposite a legend like him they would decide they hated me. “What do you think about this?” he began as he sat down beside me at a table in Catering, offering suggestions on how the promo should go. I had never worked side by side with someone of his stature and experience and was willing to do whatever he wanted, but him treating me like an equal and as if my opinions mattered made me feel as if I had arrived.

“What if I warn you about the path you’re going down, say that you’re not going to like yourself at the end of it all?” he continued enthusiastically. “What would you say back to me?”

I was nervous to pipe up and respond. He was a Hall of Famer. A great of the industry. I didn’t want to be out here chiming in shitty ideas to a legend.

“Maybe I lean into it? Like I don’t like myself, I love myself?” I offered.

“Yeah! That’s great!” he responded, giving me confidence to continue.

“Then, would it be too much if I said, ‘Get out of my ring; don’t hurt your neck stepping through those ropes’?” I asked, not wanting to offend someone who had come back to work with me specifically. Despite the fact that I had been offending my own former best friend for months in our story line.

“Not at all! That’s perfect!” Edge retorted.

When the words came out of my now-deformed mouth live on TV, even with this blatant disrespect to someone the crowd loved so much, strangely, they cheered me. We had a special bond, and it was lovely. For me. Not Edge’s neck.

“I tried!” Edge yelled to everyone in gorilla when he stepped back through the curtain.

“They’re not going to boo her!” He shrugged as he laughed it off.

To add one legend’s appearance to another, that weekend I was at a hockey game with Mick Foley. It wasn’t lost on me that the same girl who had failed PE was now mixing it up with all the heroes she had looked up to on TV.

What a freakin’ life.

A text from a friend at the time landed in my iPhone at the game: “You should call yourself ‘The Man.’ ”

The idea was so simple and yet polarizing. In our industry, and so many others, there was a long-standing history of brilliant people at the top of their game who have been referred to as “The Man,” but they had all been men. Now that “brilliant” person was me.

“What would you think if I started calling myself The Man?” I asked Mick, looking for a second opinion.

“It’s genius,” he responded with a grin.

I posted a picture of me holding my championship in Edge’s face, with the caption “I am The Man.”

We now had a slogan for the movement. It was powerful. Anyone could be The Man. It didn’t matter your background or your gender or what you do. You just needed to claim your greatness and not let anyone tell you differently.