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Becky Lynch (@BeckyLynchWWE) is a professional wrestler with WWE. She sits down with Chris Van Vliet at West Coast Creative Studio in Hollywood, CA to discuss her time away from wrestling and her return at WrestleMania 41, her new theme song performed by The Wonder Years, having to keep Seth Rollins’ fake injury a secret, fans believing that she doesn’t put other wrestlers over, her upcoming 10th WrestleMania match against AJ Lee, auditioning for Happy Gilmore 2, her new coffee company, and more!
I have to say I’m a huge pop punk fan, so The Wonder Years doing your theme song, amazing.
“I love it. When Dan, he first started off by telling me the lyrics. There was a few tears as well.”
What lyrics hit you?
“Well, the lyric about my dad, which is, ‘I talk to your ghost every night in my sleep.’ It’s a reference to my dad and, you know, he has little easter eggs about ‘they’ll rue the day’ and ‘burn it down’ and watch something better grow, like it’s all little references to my family. Yeah, so got me good. Then I heard it all together, and I was like, Oh, damn.”
How did that come together? Because not a lot of WWE Superstars get an outside band to be able to do their theme song.
“It was a bit of a struggle. I was thinking of coming back, and I was like, you know, I just don’t feel like my entrance music represents me anymore, probably didn’t represent me for about seven years, didn’t feel it. It always felt too happy-go-lucky, so I reached out to Dan Campbell from The Wonder Years, and I was like, ‘If I can get it through, is there any chance you guys would be interested in writing me a new theme song?’ Instantly, he wrote back, yes, hell yes, and he got to work, and I was like, okay, but let me just clear it through Hunter. They have ways of doing things where they want their guys to write the song and then the other band does the cover. Dan was already too far gone, and I was already too in love with his song that it ended up being a whole thing. But we got it done. There was a lot of phone calls and a few fights. So we got it done.”
You were already friends with The Wonder Years. How did that come about?
“From Colby, aka Seth Rollins, my hot husband. I wasn’t really in on the pop punk scene at all. I’m mostly a 90s grunge kid and 70s rock and The Beatles and Dylan, you know, that’s kind of what I tend to listen to. He would play his music, and most of the time I was like, Oh, God, these lads with their whiny, nasally voices. Then he puts on The Wonder Years, and The Ocean Grew Hands to Hold Me came on. I was like, Oh, damn that, that guy’s voice, oh, this band. Then he played me more and I was like, oh, I love this guy. Then we were supposed to get married in 2020, the pandemic happened and all that. For the day that we were supposed to get married, Colby surprised me with having Dan make a cover of a song Fala Amo by Bring Me the Horizon, which is a song that Colby played me when we were first getting together, then Dan did the cover, and it was all lights out, and that became our wedding song. You may have seen on Unreal, we put the phone in a bowl, and that was the one song that we had at our wedding.”
You had some time away before WrestleMania 41:
“It was mostly like, Okay, let me just be at home. Let me enjoy my home and my child, and be there for her and take her to all her classes. Let’s have a steady life for a second. Let’s try this out. How is this? Oh, it’s very nice. Then acting roles came up. So then I was doing Star Trek, and I was doing Happy Gilmore, and then we got the pilot for movies and did that.”
What’s the balance look like? Because it’s WWE, it’s acting, the new coffee brand. It’s being a mom. It’s also staying in shape, and it’s getting rest. So what’s the balance look like?
“I don’t know that there is balance. Is there ever balance? I think the schedule now helps a lot. We do TV one day a week, we don’t have the live events that we used to. I mean, the beginning of this year was insane. We had a European tour. I was also filming Star Trek. We had Saudi Arabia, so that was pretty intense. But other than that, week to week is pretty easy. We’re not gone very often. We’re gone for one sleep in her eyes, and yeah, and then the other stuff, you know, you just try to make it all work, wedge it in here. I mean, I need sleep.”
How hard was it to lie about Seth’s injury leading up to SummerSlam?
“Not hard to the public. I mean that with love for everybody, but that’s what we do. The job is acting. I’m letting you in on a story, here is the story that we were telling. To our friends and family, that was a little bit trickier. Yeah, that was the hard part.”
So who knew?
“Roux, she knew. A few of our friends and family. I let my mom know, she wasn’t gonna tell the dirt sheets. His mom knew, yeah, but the worst part was I had people texting me. Bianca was texting me. She was like, ‘I think Colby got hurt. Do you want me to go check on him?’ I was like, ‘Ah, no, that’s okay. I’m sure he’ll text me back whenever he is ready.’ She was like, ‘Oh, are you sure? Oh, wait, no, I think this might be work now, never mind. I’ll stop asking.'”
Do you share the same disdain for AJ Lee that your husband has for CM Punk?
“Not on that level, I just want her gone. To me, she’s like a fly I gotta get rid of. Get out of here. Nobody wants you. Nobody wanted you back. Be gone. You weren’t here for me when I was wrestling, when I was coming up. So I don’t want you now. Saying she’s proud of me. She wasn’t proud of me when she left. She was scared of me. That’s what happened. She was scared of me. She saw it in my eyes. She saw the fire. She went bye-bye, so long. But then, you know, she didn’t go ahead and say crap about me for years. It’s a little bit different.”
Who has the home-field advantage in Las Vegas?
“Oh, that’s me. Because WrestleMania is my home. This is my 10th WrestleMania, which makes it an anniversary, which makes it special. Started WrestleMania 32, here we are, 42. I missed one because of the child.”
Was 32 special because it was your first one?
“Yeah. But also what that match meant. We got rid of that stupid butterfly belt that AJ Lee is so proud of, got rid of that crap, and we brought in the women’s title. So it was really ushering in a new era. I know we say that a lot, but that one really was. That was a game changer for women, the way that they spotlighted that match, and dare I say, best match on the card, in front of 100,000 people.”
You recently said that this contract you’re on right now is your final contract. This is your final run.
“I mean, I didn’t say it with such assuredness as you did, right? I said it’s probably my last one. I think I said this is likely my last one. That’s not a sure [thing], but, yeah, no, it might be, could be.”
What makes you feel that way?
“I don’t know, it could be longer, but you never want to outstay your welcome. Although, I’m in my prime, I can go, plenty left in the tank. But I also have my daughter at home, and maybe I’ll want another one, and at some point, you have to just be happy with what you’ve done. But again, the love of what I do, that’s not going anywhere, but there’s a lot that goes in, around it and behind it. I suppose you never want to just leave spinning your wheels. You always want to move up. But again, that’s also not true, because sometimes I just go, what do I want to do? What would I think is fun? Maybe nobody else will, but this is what I want to do, and this is what I’m happy doing.”
Well, what do you want to do?
“I just want to tell good stories, have good matches. Want to make sure that the business is better when I leave it than how I found it. I know that what I have done is prove that women could be the biggest stars in this company, and they are and can be. I think sometimes we need to fight to make sure we’re positioned as such, because you can be a huge name, but if you’re not positioned in the main event. It’s very easy when we condition the audience, this person’s the main event, this person’s the main event, this person’s the main event, we see them as the main event. When we don’t condition the audience, then it becomes a little bit harder. And for the last few years, I think we’ve, for the most part, those main events have gone to two, maybe three, four dudes constantly. I think we need to change that again. I think we need to. I don’t know what that means, whether that means fighting a bit more, whether it’s me or somebody else. Do you think we need to get our backs up a little bit again?”
There was this idea online that you don’t put people over. I’d like to go through the list of all the people. Liv Morgan, Bianca Belair, Rhea Ripley, Maxxine Dupri, Zoey Stark, Lyra Valkyria, so I don’t know where this idea comes from.
“I don’t know. I think that’s when you’re the top of the card, it happens to everybody. Nobody is unscathed. It was Sami Hogan. It might still be Sami Hogan. It’s Cody Hogan, it’s Roman Hogan, Seth Hogan, we’re all Hogan, which say what you will about the man, one of the biggest stars to ever exist. So, yeah, I think it becomes this thing. People don’t understand how creative happens and if they see somebody that is in a preferable spot for a long period of time, they go, okay, that’s because that person is politicking and trying to hold everybody down. So, you know, it’s just people don’t know how it happens, and they don’t know what goes into it, and that’s fine, you know? They’re entitled to have their opinions. I want you to have your opinions, go nuts with your opinions. But now I’m just gonna do what I do, and how you feel about me is how you’re gonna feel about me.”
What’s been the most fun you’ve had going toe to toe with someone on the mic?
“Oh gosh, I don’t know. Bianca comes to mind. But really, anybody, even this absolute joke, Loser Lee, Nasty Nikki, seeing Loser Lyra come out of her shell. Even watching Moody Maxxine progress, all of them. Getting to see them bring something out of themselves, because they’re like, I don’t want to be walked over here. She might do that, but they step up to the plate and they bring it, and I love it.”
How has your time on Happy Gilmore two and Star Trek helped you as a performer?
“I don’t know. I think it’s all just transferable skills. I mean, they both help each other, but it’s just a transferable skill of being able to perform and tell a story and what’s your role and know your lines.”
How was your audition for Happy Gilmore?
“Oh, yeah, that was a fun one. They gave me a kayfabe script and it was two different roles. So they gave me a role of some guy, like, I had to play this guy and then this girl. They just said, just do both of them. All right, what would this character be like? This character would totally be from the manosphere. Yeah, okay, all right.”
You got to wrestle with and against Trish Stratus
“That was awesome. That cage match was one of my favorite matches. Trish Stratus, I mean, I’m the greatest female wrestler of all time, it’s not just me saying it, other people are saying it. Sports Illustrated says it, The Bleacher Report says it. But, you know, she is always going to be in that list of the greatest female wrestlers of all time, and she’s out there taking superplexes off the top of a cage! Good on you. I’m like, you got kids, two of them. She’s dedicated, man. She loves this, and she wanted to put her all into it.”
I feel like Molly Holly could probably still wrestle.
“Can still bust out that Molly Go Round. I’ve hit it a couple of times. She’s let me know it needs improvement. I don’t do it like she does. I’m not really a high flyer. As Mick [Foley] said, can’t jump high, but I can jump off of high things.”
What is Becky Lynch grateful for?
“My family, my husband, and nature.”
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