EPISODE 24 THE MAIN EVENT

The day that felt like it would never come was here: April 7, 2019.

This was my WrestleMania. I was the headliner. My name was on the marquee. This day would never happen again and I didn’t want to miss a thing.

We arrived at MetLife Stadium before 10:00 am. It would be a long time before I would go out. In recent years, WrestleMania had become upwards of eight hours long, including the preshow.

They had a tent set up with two rings, so we had a place to iron out our match; however, because everyone was so busy, we had to put the match together in small increments. We would come together, throw down a few ideas, and then be pulled away to do rehearsals or an appearance or try on our gear for the night.

Ronda had Joan Jett play her in, live, and Charlotte would arrive via a helicopter.

I wouldn’t have anything special. But that was also part of the appeal. I was raging against the machine. It would have been odd if they went all out on this for me.

As I walked the hall on the way to the tent between obligations I passed The Undertaker and Hulk Hogan. I had watched both of them main event and I was now in the same spot. Only I still felt like an excited kid, and I wondered if that’s how they felt too. Maybe they didn’t. Maybe it wasn’t a big deal to them. Or maybe how big of a deal it was was lost on them. Maybe not. All I knew was I had left my nerves in the hotel room. I was enjoying every minute of this day.

The main show was about to start and we still didn’t have our match planned out.

Suddenly a ref came in and put a new run sheet up. Colby, who was set to face Brock Lesnar, had gone from being right before me to the first match on the card.

“Shit, I gotta go watch this! I’ll be back in a few.”

I ran out of the tent and up to gorilla just in time to catch his entrance.

Brock had arrived late and didn’t like his spot on the card and thought their match would be better as the opener. What Brock Lesnar wants Brock Lesnar gets. I knew Colby was meant to win the title from Brock that night but wasn’t sure if that had now changed also.

Colby went out there, the star that he is, and took some gnarly bumps that had my heart jump into my mouth, considering his back was still feeling awful and I wondered if he’d even be able to walk tomorrow. I couldn’t relax until the match was over. Eventually, as I watched through my hands, he hit the curb stomp (his finisher) and pinned the beast one, two, three, to become the new Universal Champion!

I jumped up and down in my own little corner in gorilla and waited for him to come back. Once I saw him walk through the curtain safely, I left gorilla and stood just outside to allow him to have his moments and thank everyone. Plus, we weren’t officially out yet.

He came out and wrapped me up in a big sweaty hug. “I couldn’t have done it without you,” he said as camera crews swarmed us.

Of course he absolutely could have and would have. Even worse, he might have been the main event. Regardless, I felt special that I got to experience it all with him.

But now that he was done, I had to finish putting my match together, get into my gear, and get my makeup done. It was just after 7:00 pm, so I knew I would have at least four hours before we went out.

By the time we had finished putting the match together, I was proud of what we had come up with.

“This could be match of the night,” I said to Charlotte as we sat in one corner of the ring.

“Do you think?” she asked.

“I do.”

I was genuinely proud of what we had put together.

It was almost midnight when I stood in gorilla, makeup on, gear looking exactly as I had imagined it.

Fergal walked back after finishing his match. He too had just won the intercontinental title. It felt like all my people were having their nights made tonight.

“Enjoy it, sis. Go get ’em,” Fergal said as he walked past me.

It was now time for the main event! The moment that felt like I had been building to my entire life.

The women’s roster had now congregated in gorilla, I imagine watching with equal parts hope and envy. It was the spot everyone wanted.

“Bad Reputation” had just begun and as Ronda went to exit through the door that had replaced the standard curtain in gorilla to the stage, when the door fell with a giant thud on the ground, nearly crushing our star!

I hope that’s not a bad omen, I thought as Ronda made her way to the ring, Joan Jett and the Blackhearts playing her down as the exhausted crowd came to life. The energy was clearly dwindling after so much wrestling.

Then it was Charlotte’s time.

“Let’s kill it,” I said as she walked out through the now-gaping hole in gorilla.

Her music finished and I heard the sound of eighty thousand people chanting my name, awaiting history.

My music hit and I strutted out, ensuring I took my time to soak it up. The stadium was packed to the brim; the dark night sky was cold and crisp. I looked to my left to see Joan Jett kindly smiling at me as she clutched her guitar.

Walking down the ramp to the ring felt like it took two hours and two seconds at the same time as I tried to take in as many faces as I could.

I looked out into the front row and immediately spotted my brother and dad. My dad, covered in a blanket to keep him from freezing, nodded at me with a warm smile on his face. My brother winked and smiled with a proudness about him. I wouldn’t be doing any of this if it hadn’t been for him.

Usually the friends and family of the performers get brought to the front row when their match is on. I looked for my mom, slightly nervous about how her and my dad would relate now, being in the same space for the first time in twenty years, but I couldn’t see her anywhere.

“I’ll find her later,” I said to myself, while also being relieved that I didn’t have to worry about any parental confrontations right now.

The bell rang and the match started, the tired crowd graciously serenading me with chants of “Becky, Becky!”

Midway through the match I was sensing it was too long, considering the hour, and tomorrow was a school day after all.

It wasn’t going as smoothly as I had hoped for. It’s true that sound escapes in stadiums like that, but as a performer, and as a human, I was aware that that crowd had now been there for nearly nine hours.

We also hadn’t taken into account that Ronda had never done a triple threat, so some things that we knew from doing many of them she wasn’t aware of, such as rolling out of the ring and to the floor when you’re not in a portion of the match.

Eventually we had reached the crescendo. Charlotte was out of the picture, having gone through a table, and the crowd got riled up for the moment they had waited for. At last, it was Becky Lynch versus Ronda Rousey one-on-one.

We circled and then went in throwing fists before she cut me off to lead immediately to the finish, not giving them much of anything. She picked me up for one of her slams, but I rolled through to a pin. One, two, eh, three.

She had picked her shoulder up off the mat before the three count. Whether that was by accident or deliberate, I suppose we’ll never know.

But the ref, knowing this was the end of the match, counted to three regardless of Ronda’s shoulder coming up, in one of the most anticlimactic finishes in WrestleMania main event history. We were making all sorts of history that night!

Poor Spider even paid a $1,000 fine for his sin of counting three when a shoulder had come up. Vince was strict on these things.

The crowd jumped to their feet regardless. They were happy to see me win in this historic match but I’m sure also partially happy to get the hell home!

All the people who got me to where I was flashing before my eyes as I crumpled over with disbelief.

When I stood up, I saw my dad and brother clapping.

Where was my mom? Why wasn’t she there? She was supposed to have been brought down to the front.

I saw my friends Jay and Jen. Maybe my mom was on another side of the ring.

I surveyed the fringes of the crowd. I couldn’t see her anywhere.

My search was called off by fireworks going off to celebrate my win. I got fireworks!

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. But on this night, I had proved to myself, despite it all, I would find a way to overcome them.

I got out of the ring and ran to my brother and dad. “I’m proud of ya, kid.” Richy beamed.

“Well done, Becks,” said my dad as I hugged him.

I began to walk up the ramp, looking out to the crowd, afraid to even blink should I miss a second of this, the two titles I was holding becoming heavy on my shoulders.

Tomorrow I would worry about what would come next for me, but for tonight I was The Man.

I texted my mom when I got back to the changing room: “Where were you? Why weren’t you in the front?”

The last time she had seen me perform live in New York I had fallen flat on my face. Now I was holding two titles in the air, doing what no woman in the history of wrestling had ever done before.

“No one came to get us, but that’s okay. I’m so proud of you.”

Even The Man yearned for the approval of her mother. And to put her mind at rest. All those gambles were worth it.