The wrestling world was buzzing as AJ Lee is keeping the door open for another WWE re-emergence, yet 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 grand re-entry in August 2025, joining her husband CM Punk in his ongoing program 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. We had to go borrow other schools’ fields for games. “I always use the analogy that I went to this really poor high school and we didn’t even have a field for sports. Furthermore, i graduated and a year later they got a field,” Lee commented. “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, yet 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 noted.
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 noted. “I’ve always been a character who has delivered extremely 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. I think they knew I would bring that support to this pay-per-view that needed more eyeballs. That’s never wavered. The story was there.”
Despite the opportunity, Lee unveiled that she initially resisted the idea of returning. “I took a second, and i took a minute. It wasn’t for me at debut,” 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. Building on that, the situation 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.’ Things were a weirdly bizarre time.”
Lee laid out 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 underwhelming that final year,” Lee expressed. “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. “It was actually the perfect headspace to go in and feel healthy and safe. “Coming from a place of not having a list of things to check off and I wasn’t desperate for it — things were coming from a place that I’m so complete, whole, and happy,” she said. They extremely much told me that my mental health was going to be a priority.”
Lee hasn’t emerged on WWE television since losing the WWE Women’s Intercontinental Belt to Becky Lynch at WrestleMania 42. Following the match, however, she made it clear that she wasn’t necessarily saying goodbye, telling audience, “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. Though I feel like I’m additionally story-driven.”, “I’m confident in what I can bring. What's more, 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 commented.
For Lee, another reappearance 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. Adding to the story, if it’s something new that I haven’t done and feels like breaking ground, that is what is noteworthy to me,” she remarked. “We’ll see. To add further context, i’m going to keep writing, working out, and staying ready.”
For now, there is no confirmation regarding when or if Lee will grand re-entry to WWE television, but her comments make clear that she hasn’t closed the door on another run.