One of the most memorable matches of the WWE Divas era nearly came with some backstage heat.
Former WWE star Kaitlyn recently reflected on her WWE Payback 2013 showdown with AJ Lee, a match that saw AJ capture the Divas Championship for the first time and begin what would become a historic title reign.
Looking back on the bout during an appearance on Rewind, Recap, Relive (see video below), Kaitlyn revealed that the match ran longer than scheduled and even cut into the time allotted for John Cena’s match later on the card.
According to Kaitlyn, WWE officials were urging the match to wrap up, but she and AJ felt they still had more story left to tell in front of an energized crowd.
“What’s funny about that match is we went over on our time and you never do that on a pay-per-view,” she recalled. “They told us to go home. We probably still had two minutes left, maybe two and a half minutes left of like to really tell the story, and so the ref tells us like, ‘you need to take it home, take it home, take it home.’ We were used to getting our time cut because people’s matches ran over, you know?”
At the time, women’s matches often found themselves losing minutes when other segments exceeded their allotted time. However, Kaitlyn said this occasion played out differently, with AJ pushing to continue despite repeated instructions from the referee.
A bold decision in the moment.
“So there’s usually always the divas that they cut,” she continued. “The ref tells us and AJ’s like, ‘no,’ and so we were both down selling and she was like, ‘let’s keep going.’ I was like, ‘okay.’ The crowd was insane. I was crying, and when we got back into Gorilla, Cena was back there, and because Cena’s match was still up. So we cut into Cena’s match, and he was like, ‘never do that again.’ But he was like, ‘great match.’”
While Cena apparently made it clear that running over time was not something wrestlers should make a habit of, Kaitlyn noted that he still complimented the match. More than a decade later, the bout remains one of the most highly regarded matches of the Divas Championship era and served as the launching point for AJ Lee’s record-setting run at the top of the division.
