Ten years is a lifetime in WWE. AJ Lee just erased it in one entrance.
On a charged Friday night at the Allstate Arena outside Chicago, AJ Lee walked back onto WWE television for the first time since 2015 and went straight at Becky Lynch. No warm-up. No long speech. Just fists. The return wasn’t teased, wasn’t advertised, and the place shook like a title change.
The timing wasn’t random. CM Punk had been circling a powder keg with Seth Rollins and Becky Lynch for weeks. Lynch cost Punk the World Heavyweight Championship at Clash in Paris, then rubbed salt in it on Monday Night Raw. Punk, boxed in by WWE’s hard line on intergender violence, hinted he had a solution. “Becky, this is exactly the situation I wanted to avoid,” he said in the ring, “because you know and I know and everyone knows, I would never put my hands on a lady. Thankfully, I got somebody who will.” Then the familiar riff hit, and the crowd did the rest.
The AJ Lee return was simple, loud, and effective. She slid into the ring, squared up with the Women’s Intercontinental Champion, and they swung. No monologues. No melodrama. Seth Rollins yanked Lynch out of the fray, Punk kept his distance, and the message was clear: the fight just doubled.
What happened on SmackDown
The setup started days earlier. After Clash in Paris turned on Lynch’s interference, Punk went looking for payback without crossing WWE’s rules. On SmackDown in Rosemont—Punk’s backyard—he got it. He called Lynch out, acknowledged the bind he was in, and left the next beat to a surprise nobody thought WWE would pull off on a random Friday in September.
AJ’s music hit and the camera caught Lynch’s face drop. Lee hit the ring and went right for the champion. They tangled in the ropes, AJ fired off quick shots, and the arena leaned forward like it was 2014 again. Rollins raced in to pull Lynch to safety. Punk never touched either one. That mattered as a storytelling choice—WWE got the heat without breaking its long-standing policy on men-versus-women contact.
After the show cut, cameras picked up AJ and Punk on the ramp soaking in the ovation. It wasn’t staged sentiment. This was the first time the married pair stood together on WWE television in years. For a company that runs on moments, this one landed.
WWE framed it as a clean escalation. The Punk–Rollins rivalry now has layers. Lynch isn’t just a meddling spoiler—she’s a direct target. And AJ isn’t a cameo. She’s a player.
Why this return matters now
AJ Lee didn’t fade away; she stepped away. She retired in April 2015 after a run that made her one of the most recognizable women in the company. Three Divas Championship reigns. The Black Widow submission that closed matches in a snap. A skipping entrance that the crowd still mimics. Feuds with Kaitlyn and Paige that stood out in an era that didn’t always value the women’s division the way it does now.
In the years since, she worked behind the scenes and on-air with Women of Wrestling, wrote a best-selling memoir, and stayed out of the WWE bubble. Her return now does two things at once: it pays off a top-tier storyline and it plugs a proven star into a women’s roster that’s deeper and more visible than it was a decade ago.
There’s also the chessboard. Punk versus Rollins is history-rich on its own. Add Lynch, one of the most important stars of the modern era, and AJ, one of the faces of the last era, and you’ve got a blend that spans generations. It’s personal without feeling forced. It’s also practical. WWE can drive this angle in multiple directions without burning through it in one match.
Here’s what’s now in play:
- AJ Lee vs. Becky Lynch for the Women’s Intercontinental Championship, a straight singles match that tests AJ’s readiness right away.
- Mixed tag: CM Punk and AJ Lee vs. Seth Rollins and Becky Lynch. That keeps the intergender rules clean and gives the story a big-stage payoff.
- AJ opposite other names who grew into top spots during her absence, including potential first-time matches that are easy box-office sells.
AJ’s health will be a talking point. She retired in part to protect her body and pursue work outside the ring. If WWE is committing her to live action now, expect the company to manage her schedule tightly—targeted matches, strong promos, and protected TV segments. That’s a formula they’ve used with big returns before.
Creative has a few levers to pull. Keep the story hot on the microphone—AJ and Lynch can carry weeks of TV with words alone. Build to a mixed-tag main event on a premium live show. Then, if AJ’s cleared and comfortable, wrap the arc with a singles title match. That structure gives everyone a win: Punk and Rollins get the marquee main event energy, while the women’s title scene gets a spotlight match that feels earned.
There’s symbolism here too. A decade ago, AJ pushed for more time, more stories, and more respect for women’s wrestling on national TV. Now she’s walking into a division with multiple women’s titles and consistent main-event slots. The landscape she argued for is closer to reality, and she’s meeting one of its standard-bearers in Lynch.
For Chicago, this was an easy sell. Punk has made the Allstate Arena a home court. AJ, while a New Jersey native, has long gotten a warm reception there. WWE leaned into that energy and kept the secret tight enough that the pop felt real. You could see it on the fans who still remember the skip, the Black Widow, and the way AJ worked a crowd with a smirk and a few barbed lines.
Backstage implications? Expect merch to move and clips to flood social feeds. Nostalgia returns only work if the talent can still connect on contact. AJ did that in 60 seconds. That brawl told fans what they needed to know: she isn’t here for a wave and a speech. She’s here to fight Becky Lynch.
If you’re tracking what’s next, watch for three signals. One: does WWE announce a medical clearance and match date for AJ, or do they keep her physicality short for a few weeks? Two: does Punk shift out of the World Heavyweight Title chase to focus on this personal feud, or does he try to juggle both? Three: do Rollins and Lynch lean into being a packaged act on TV, which would set up more mixed tags and promo duels?
There’s plenty of runway before a payoff. A major live event would be a natural landing spot for a mixed tag, with a singles title match after if AJ wants it. In the meantime, expect the weekly shows to use stare-downs, cheap shots, and sharp promos to keep the temperature up. Punk will play the line between vengeful and restrained. AJ and Becky will try to steal segments without giving away the match.
For fans who started watching after AJ left, a quick refresher helps. She arrived in WWE during the developmental NXT era, broke through on the main roster with storylines alongside Daniel Bryan and Dolph Ziggler, held the Divas Championship three times, and famously retained at WrestleMania in a 14-woman match with the Black Widow. Her style was fast and technical, with character work that got under opponents’ skin. It’s a different women’s division now—stronger, faster, deeper—but the instincts still translate.
The other hook is the microphone. AJ and Becky are both elite talkers, just in different ways. AJ uses needling sarcasm and quick pivots. Lynch brings blunt force and presence. Punk and Rollins add their own cadence and history. Put that foursome in alternating promo slots on Raw and SmackDown and you can carry a month of TV without a single clean finish.
WWE loves to thread real life into fiction. This angle does that without getting messy. Punk and AJ are married. Rollins and Lynch are married. The stakes feel personal, but the story sits cleanly inside the rules of the show. It lets the company sell emotion while keeping the action inside believable lanes.
One more note about optics. Punk’s line about not putting hands on a woman set the table. Bringing in AJ was the only way to keep the feud hot without bending a policy WWE has held firm on for years. That choice mattered. It respected the company’s standards and gave fans a satisfying, in-universe answer to Becky Lynch running interference.
WWE didn’t need fireworks to sell it. They needed surprise, clarity, and a hook. AJ Lee gave them all three in under two minutes. Now the company has something rare on its hands: a return that feels fresh, a feud that drips history, and a roster deep enough to spin off multiple matches without burning the core.
