Cliff Notes – Returning WWE icon AJ Lee gave top star ‘belief’ she could make it
- AJ Lee’s return to WWE after a decade is celebrated, particularly by younger female wrestlers who grew up admiring her, including Roxanne Perez.
- Roxanne Perez credits AJ Lee as a significant inspiration, noting that seeing someone relatable in the ring helped her believe she could pursue a wrestling career.
- Perez, now a two-time NXT Women’s Champion, reflects on her journey from being a nervous newcomer to embracing her potential to surpass her idols in the wrestling world.
Returning WWE icon AJ Lee gave top star ‘belief’ she could make it
AJ Lee has returned after inspiring a generation (Picture: WWE)
AJ Lee is back in WWE, and the entire women’s locker room will be rejoicing.
It’s been a decade since the former Divas Champion’s last appearance, with plenty of the current crop of superstars growing up watching her in their teens.
Among them was Roxanne Perez, who has been extremely vocal about how much AJ, 38, inspired her to chase her dreams of becoming a wrestler in WWE.
‘I think I always knew I wanted to be a WWE superstar,’ she exclusively told Metro during an interview with our wrestling expert Alistair McGeorge at WrestleMania 39 in Hollywood.
‘At first it was actually The Rock,’ she said of her early influences. ‘I remember turning on the TV and seeing him. I already knew who he was because of Hollywood and movies and what not.
‘I was like, “Wow, this is pretty crazy!” How electrifying he was, I was like, “Wow, I want to do that!” And then I saw AJ Lee.’
Roxanne Perez looked up to the former Divas Champion (Picture: Michael Marques/WWE via Getty Images)
AJ returned on Friday’s episode of SmackDown (Picture: WWE/Getty)
For Roxanne, already a two-time NXT Women’s Champion with two tag team title runs to her name at the age of just 23, seeing AJ on screen was when everything clicked.
‘At the time, you saw Kelly Kelly – and she’s so amazing, but I couldn’t relate because I don’t look like her,’ she recalled.
‘To see someone like AJ Lee where she’s a tom boy, she was a fan, she was Latina, she was small. That really related to me so much, and it helped me believe, “OK, I could really do this, I could be a WWE superstar.” ‘
The Prodigy loved seeing someone who looked like her (Picture: Michael Marques/WWE via Getty Images)
AJ made her realise she could be a wrestler (Picture: Craig Ambrosio/WWE via Getty Images)
When we caught up with Roxanne earlier this year in Las Vegas for WrestleMania 41, she admitted once she set her sights on WWE, she ‘never imaged doing anything else’, even during training.
‘I started pretty young, 13 years old. For some reason I just, I just had a feeling that it was gonna happen if I just got going,’ she admitted. ‘I just, I feel like I manifested it, I envisioned it, and now I’m living it.’
Roxanne can be seen on Monday Night Raw each week teaming with Raquel Rodriguez as a member of the Judgment Day, and while she acts very confident on screen, she admitted that ‘definitely didn’t come naturally’.
She’s one of the top rising stars in all of WWE (Picture: Rich Freeda/WWE via Getty Images)
Roxanne has held gold with Raquel Rodriguez and more (Picture: Craig Melvin/WWE via Getty Images)
‘When I first walked into WWE, I definitely was not as confident as I am now. I was definitely nervous to be surrounded by all the people that I looked up to,’ she recalled.
However, she soon set her sights on not only matching her idols but surpassing them.
‘I realised that, like, they’re my equals. I could be them one day, and I could do more than them one day,’ she smiled. So, that’s the mentality that I had to have, and I think that’s got me pretty far.’
WWE Raw airs Monday nights at 1am on Netflix. WWE is returning to the UK and Europe in January 2026.
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