It was a bit of surprise (or maybe not really) that former WWE Diva’s Champion, A.J. Lee abruptly announced her decision to retire from professional wrestling. Lee had teamed with Paige at last week’s Wrestlemania to defeat the Bella Twins and is a former three time WWE Divas Champion.
A.J. signed with the WWE in 2009 after a successful indy run and would be assigned to Florida Championship Wrestling, the then developmental territory for the WWE. Lee would win the “Queen of FCW” and FCW Divas title but would be called up to participate in the third season of NXT, which was an all female season. With Primo as her “Pro”, A.J. would finish third in the competition and would embark on a tag team with fellow diva, Kaitlyn and would become a fixture on the main roster as the on screen girlfriend of Daniel Bryan.
This would lead to a high profile run where she became “unstable” and worked programs with John Cena, Kane, CM Punk and Dolph Ziggler and would win the first of three Divas Titles, and was regarded by many as the best female wrestler in the WWE.
At the age of 28, this may seem like an abrupt retirement, but the signs were there that Lee would leave the WWE and professional wrestling. She married CM Punk in real life, who had been burned out by the business and had left the industry fifteen months ago and is now pursuing a career with UFC. Lee, when accepting the WWE Diva of the year last December, which sounded like a farewell. She also made headlines when confronting Stephanie McMahon about equal pay on Twitter, when she responded to Patricia Arquette’s equal pay speech on the Academy Awards. She has also been off a lot this past year mending past injuries.
Lee is only 28 years old and could easily come back and we will hold off on ranking her on the Notinhalloffame.com WWE list, but will create a profile for her on the Futures List.
We here at Notinhalloffame.com wish A.J. the best of luck and look forward to see what she is up to next!
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