AJ Lee is keeping the door open for another WWE return.
After a decade away from the ring, Lee made her long-awaited comeback in August 2025, joining forces with her husband, CM Punk, in his rivalry with Seth Rollins and Becky Lynch.
Talk of a potential return had followed Lee since Punk resurfaced in WWE two years earlier, but it ultimately took the right circumstances — and the right story — to bring her back.
During an appearance on the Mind Over Mountain podcast with Cheryl Strayed, Lee explained that she had long viewed wrestling as a chapter of her life that was already complete.
“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 said she was happy to see women’s wrestling continue to progress without necessarily feeling the need to return and experience those changes herself.
“‘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 asked what WWE’s pitch involved, Lee pointed to both the storyline and the business side of bringing her back.
“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 didn’t immediately agree to return.
“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.”
Lee even recalled receiving one of the calls while 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.”
Her biggest concern, however, was protecting the progress she had made with her mental health during her decade away from 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 realized that returning from a place where she already felt fulfilled made the decision easier.
“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, she stressed that it wasn’t goodbye, instead telling fans, “I’ll see you soon…I hope.”
As for whether another run is in her future, Lee isn’t making any promises, but she plans to remain ready should the right opportunity come along.
“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 offer something creatively worthwhile.
“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 word on when or if Lee will resurface on WWE television.
