“For those of you who weren’t here ten years ago and were really confused as to why your millennial parents were very excited on Friday, allow me to introduce myself. My name is AJ Lee. And I am your favorite wrestler’s favorite wrestler”
The return of AJ Lee to WWE has obviously been the hot topic in the wrestling world over the last several days. As so many of you know, I’m a massive AJ Lee fan so this has been a very exciting time. Her return video has gotten 178 million social views across all platforms. Top video for anything Smackdown this year. Her new shirt went online immediately when she returned and started selling out quickly. I saw some in that younger age demo humbly asking online to please inform us on AJ Lee and why she is clearly such a huge deal. Saying they want to be informed. Simply, AJ Lee is the one that busted down the door for so many women getting into WWE and being given a chance. At the beginning of her era, WWE clearly had a type of what they liked when it came to women performers. AJ Lee showed up and said I’m not like them. I’m the nerdy awkward girl that likes playing video games with my friends and this is me. And we loved her. She was the inspiration for a lot of girls out there. They dressed like her and still do. She was the girl that the guys were crushing on including myself. LOL. She was different. She led the charge for a different style of women performers in WWE. She was such a great personality on TV and so over that she kept getting different roles from in ring performer to manager. She got the biggest spot on TV by being put in a general manager position making matches. Her character went from the sweet girl to the vindictive looking for revenge on anyone that wronged her. She had to battle to move up the line and faced a lot of adversity in the company which you can read about in her book. She’s talked about when she pitched for a shirt idea that she got laughed by the company saying WWE doesn’t do shirts for women and haven’t in many years. She kept pushing and forced her way through. She broke that door open too that she went from struggling to get a first shirt to being featured on over 30 pieces of WWE merchandise by the time she left the company. Since leaving WWE, she became a best selling author with her awesome book, Crazy Is My Superpower. She’s been a huge mental health advocate speaking across the country. Very talented screen writer with her sister between comic books and on screen TV/movies. She got involved with the WOW – Women of Wrestling promotion. She’s been extremely busy to where I’m amazed she even has time to do wrestling again. Simply put, AJ Lee was a trailblazer. If we don’t have AJ Lee knocking down that door, there are a lot of talents that don’t have the spots that they got as she blazed the trail for all these awesome women that were the alternative and gave them a way to move up the ladder too.
How did we get to Friday night? Well it was pretty basic paint by numbers booking of how it laid out. When Becky got involved in the four way at Clash at the Castle, I said oh, are we getting AJ Lee???!!! Now you have Becky involved which would mean Punk needs someone to counter Becky. As Punk walked out during the post show up the ramp, he pointed to an AJ Lee sign in the crowd with a nod of maybe that’s what I need to do. We got the AJ Lee chants showing up on WWE TV while Becky would yell “she doesn’t work here anymore!” Then, she starts slapping Punk on Raw and I said oh, we’re clearly getting AJ Lee now cause this is the only thing that makes sense with the story we’re being told here. With Smackdown on Friday in Chicago, it felt like that AEW Rampage in Chicago with Punk’s return to wrestling where it felt obvious this was going to be Punk’s return but we still needed that confirmation of it happening. Friday, all of us AJ Lee fans just kept hoping and clinging on every single moment of the night to fuel our little hope that we were going to get what we were begging for. Becky goes over the top with Punk slapping him again. Punk steps aside and brings out AJ Lee to a monster reaction. I loved everything about it. The slow start to the skip where it was a feel of let’s start this engine and get it going again as she got up to pace on the skip down the aisle. The lean with her elbows on the apron. The sitting on the middle ropes. All the AJ classic things were in motion for the fans to just be smiling so big. Becky and Seth sold it awesome too. Then, we had the moment too of AJ jumping into Punk’s arms which was another throwback of what she would do with her romantic interests back in the day. Just the simplest of things that just made us all cheer. If you haven’t watched the post show video of the continuing celebration of her return, it’s well worth going out of your way to see. https://youtu.be/DVeUoCsIEcc?si=LtVzzkXIEgbasHBN
We now know her first match back will be the tag match at Wrestlepalooza on September 20th with her and CM Punk against Seth Rollins and Becky Lynch.
The other big moment of Smackdown was the final John Cena appearance in Chicago and on Smackdown itself. The way Chicago loved on John Cena was overwhelming including for Cena. He mentioned in his promo that it doesn’t go unnoticed just what he was getting from Chicago on Friday night considering they weren’t fans of his very often. Chicago was always one of his toughest cities. There were some cities that just always booed Cena and Chicago was one of his very toughest to go into. Cena would get booed in Chicago, New York, and well, most places in the Northeast. Friday night, Chicago absolutely loved on John Cena for his final appearance there with “thank you Cena” chants. They booed Sami Zayn who came out to challenge Cena for a match. It was wild cause this is the reverse of what it normally has been for Cena in Chicago. Cena would be the babyface getting booed and a heel would come out getting all the cheers against Cena. Now, you have a babyface Sami coming out there who wasn’t coming out to do anything heelish and the fans are relentless on Sami for it. That was quite the moment! They put on a very fun match where Cena was also continuing to use other wrestlers moves that he has faced in his career as tributes to honor those talents. The spear for Edge. The Angle slam for Kurt Angle. The pop up powerbomb for KO. The fans started chanting RKO and Cena fed into it and went for it to be countered by Sami. I said yeah, he leaned into the crowd but with it being countered, he’s saving that RKO for another time. The finish it felt like neither could win so there would have to be a run in. Sami can’t lose the US title and Sami pinning Cena wouldn’t go over well either. How do we get out of this? Yep, run in crashing the end of the match with Brock Lesnar laying out Cena once again which sets up their Wrestlepalooza match. The story was the closing of that chapter of Cena in Chicago. All of us remember the matches there where Cena would be in a lion’s den whether it was the Punk match from Money In The Bank 2011. Triple H at WrestleMania 22. So many more. Chicago was hard on Cena and Cena understood it. Friday night, both honored and gave respect to one another and it was an incredible near hour of watching that play out.
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