AJ Lee is keeping the door open for another WWE return, but says the right story would need to be there to bring her back.
After a decade away from the ring, Lee made her long-awaited comeback in August 2025, joining her husband CM Punk in his rivalry with Seth Rollins and Becky Lynch.
During an appearance on the Mind Over Mountain podcast with Cheryl Strayed, Lee reflected on why she had previously considered wrestling a completed chapter of her life. “I always use the analogy that I went to this really poor high school and we didn’t even have a field for sports. We had to go borrow other schools’ fields for games. I graduated and a year later they got a field,” Lee said. “I never thought, ‘I’m gonna be a fifth-year senior and enjoy this field.’ No, my time passed and I hope these kids enjoy this extra wonderful thing that they have. That’s how I always thought about wrestling.”
Lee was happy to watch women’s wrestling continue evolving after her departure without feeling that she personally needed to return and experience those opportunities. “‘I didn’t get it, but I’m so happy that I could do anything in the fight for you to get that one day.’ I didn’t think of it in terms of me at all. Then, they called,” she said.
When discussing why WWE wanted her back, Lee pointed to both the storyline and the business considerations surrounding the company’s new relationship with ESPN. “I guess the story was there. My business sense says there was a new TV show that they needed to promote, a new relationship with ESPN,” she said. “I’ve always been a character who has delivered very high ratings and merchandise sales. There is a reliability to this character, and God bless my fans.”
Lee continued, “In any business I’ve gone to, they’ve followed me and supported me consistently. That’s never wavered. I think they knew I would bring that support to this event that needed more eyeballs. The story was there.”
Despite the opportunity, Lee revealed that she initially resisted the idea of returning. “I took a second. I took a minute. It wasn’t for me at first,” she recalled. “I felt like I had such a wonderful career and I didn’t want to mess with that. I didn’t think that they needed me. It was kind of a ‘no’ for a while.”
One of WWE’s calls even came while Lee was recovering from dental surgery. “I do remember that I had dental surgery and I got a call and I was like, ‘How high am I? I’ve been gone for ten years.’ It was a weirdly bizarre time.”
Lee explained that her biggest concern was protecting the progress she had made with her mental health during her decade away from professional wrestling. “The more I talked to them…the biggest hesitation on my part was my mental health was so bad that last year,” Lee said. “I was really afraid of backsliding because I had done ten years of work to get myself healthy and be happy in life.”
Ultimately, Lee felt that returning from a position where she was already fulfilled allowed her to approach wrestling differently. “Coming from a place of not having a list of things to check off and I wasn’t desperate for it, it was coming from a place that I’m so complete, whole, and happy,” she said. “It was actually the perfect headspace to go in and feel healthy and safe. They very much told me that my mental health was going to be a priority.”
Lee hasn’t appeared on WWE television since losing the WWE Women’s Intercontinental Championship to Becky Lynch at WrestleMania 42. Following the match, however, she made it clear that she wasn’t necessarily saying goodbye, telling fans, “I’ll see you soon…I hope.”
As for whether she will ultimately step back into a WWE ring, Lee isn’t making any promises. “We’ll see. There was a piece of me where I was just like, ‘I just need a little time.’ When I did, I was like, ‘I’m still kind of killing it,’” she said. “I’m confident in what I can bring, but I feel like I’m also story-driven.”
For Lee, another comeback would need to provide a creative opportunity that genuinely excites her. “If there is a story there, that’s going to be the thing that excites me. If it’s something new that I haven’t done and feels like breaking ground, that is what is interesting to me,” she said. “We’ll see. I’m going to keep writing, working out, and staying ready.”
For now, there is no confirmation regarding when or if Lee will return to WWE television, but her comments make clear that she hasn’t closed the door on another run.
