Becky Lynch is back talking smack and making major headlines once again in WWE.
The Man made a stunning return at WrestleMania last weekend as the tag team partner of Lyra Valkyria.
The Irish sensations combined forces as Lynch ended an almost year-long absence from the ring by helping defeat women’s tag team champions Liv Morgan and Raquel Rodriguez.
She was given a huge ovation when she appeared in front of more than 60,000 in Las Vegas as she aligned with Valkyria, and an equally sizable one the following night when she turned on her new partner.
Turning heel – becoming a wrestling villain – just 24 hours after their WrestleMania moment, Lynch left her ‘partner’ beaten in heap, setting the scene for another intriguing Becky Lynch storyline over the coming weeks and months.
It all comes as a sharp contrast to some of the formative months and years of the legend’s iconic career.
For a while now she is a five-time world champion and in her second reign as a tag champ, even a decade ago the story was very different.
In 2016, Lynch had already achieved plenty, working her way up from her wrestling beginnings in Ireland and Canada before landing a deal with WWE via NXT, its developmental division.
Soon enough she was drafted to the main roster and made history as the very first SmackDown Women’s Champion.
Eager to showcase the talents of not only herself but her opponents, however, the grappler faced a struggle in one of her first major title defences against Alexa Bliss.
She would tangle with the relatively diminutive Bliss at Tables, Ladders and Chairs three months after winning it and successfully defending it on a European live event tour.
In her autobiography, Bliss described a ‘daunting feeling’ ahead of the Bliss match, finding the task of allowing everyone involved to flourish very difficult.
“It wasn’t long after my momentous title victory that the audience was already getting sick of me,” she wrote. “Or rather I was getting sick of me.
“It was stressing me out. I was already feeling the adrenaline dump of achieving my goals, but the realization that this was only the beginning of the hard work was daunting.”
The hassle with Bliss came in wanting to make her matches realistic. Much smaller in stature, Bliss couldn’t take too much of a beating from the champion without eliciting too much sympathy from the audience – the opposite of what WWE needed for their fan-friendly champion.
“I wanted to be not only a great champion but one who helped build people along the way,” she added.
“I just didn’t have a clue how to do it and had no idea how to make these matches with Alexa any good. I wasn’t the best at ‘getting my s*** in.’
There, Lynch refers to the art of an established star being able to do all of their trademark moves and routines in a match without overshadowing their opponent.
It was quite the mental predicament, so the now 38-year-old sought some help from a ‘sage’ source – WWE legend John Cena.
His response was simple but effective. The veteran – now in his 17th reign as a world champ in WWE – told her: ‘This is your time.’
Lynch described their backstage conversation, saying: “Struggling, I asked the one person I knew who could come out of every situation looking great: Superman. Aka John Cena.
“[I said]: ‘I’m having trouble trying to structure this match. I want us both to look good, but it’s hard when she’s so small.’
“In his straight-to-the-point, wise Cena manner he answered immediately with no hesitation: ‘This is your time; make sure you take it. The young gymnast’s time will come.’
“It was great advice. Cena has that Tibetan monk sage-type quality to him. But I had absolutely no idea how to put it into practice.”
Lynch might not have solved her conundrum straight away, but Cena’s words clearly hit home and had an impact – she went on to win multiple future world titles after losing her initial SmackDown one to Bliss.
Also a Royal Rumble winner, some could argue the former Lass Kicker has come full circle.
In working a programme with relative WWE rookie in 28-year-old Valkyria she’s in a prime position to pass on her own wisdom to the starlet who doubles as the company’s Women’s Intercontinental Champion.
Quite whether Becky can muster Cena’s ‘monk sage-type quality’ remains to be seen but, if she can, the wrestling stars of tomorrow will benefit.
