Becky Lynch spent the early years of her WWE career convinced she was already running out of time. Even at just 27 years old, Lynch says she expected WWE to eventually get rid of her because she thought she was getting too old.
Speaking on the No Count Wrestling Podcast, Lynch explained that she had been putting strange deadlines on her wrestling dream since she was a teenager. At 19, she was already telling herself that she needed to make something happen before turning 20 or give up and find a “real job.” She recently found an old diary that showed just how seriously she believed that at the time.
“The pressure that I put on myself to—I have to make it by the time I’m before I’m 20. Before I’m 20 cuz then I’ll be too old. You know, I’ll be too old. I need to get a real job.”
Those weren’t just passing thoughts either. Lynch had actually written about giving up on her dream and settling down because she believed turning 20 meant she had somehow missed her opportunity.
“These are stuff that I found a diary that I had written down. Like, ‘I need to get a real job. I’m living in a dream world. I need to settle down.’ I was 19 when I was writing that.”
In Becky Lynch’s head, turning 20 had become this bizarre point of no return. Looking back now, she compared it to Cinderella’s carriage turning back into a pumpkin.
“By the time I hit 20, for some reason, the pumpkin was going—the carriage was going to turn back into a pumpkin.”
That fear didn’t disappear when WWE finally came calling. Lynch says she was 25 when she received her WWE tryout, while the company’s cutoff for women at the time was 26. That made the opportunity feel like her last possible shot.
“Even when I was going for my tryout, I was 25 and the cutoff as a woman was 26. So even then I was like kind of pushing—pushing it. If I don’t get in now, that’s it. Dream’s dead. I’ll be too old, you know.”
Getting into WWE still didn’t convince Lynch that she had plenty of time ahead of her. By 27, she says she already felt “ancient.” Lynch genuinely believed she had about two years to make something happen before WWE would kick her out, and she was already planning marriage and children around that imaginary deadline.
“I felt like I was ancient at 27. Like I was like, ‘Okay, I got to—we got to—we got like two years in WWE before they’re going to kick me out.’ Then I got to be married. Then got to have the kid, you know, at like 27.”
Obviously, that two-year clock never existed. Lynch went on to become one of WWE’s biggest stars, and the career she once thought might be over before 30 ended up looking very different from anything her 19-year-old self imagined.
Lynch is also glad that the wrestling business appears to have moved away from some of those age restrictions and expectations. She sees younger talent being more relaxed about their timelines now, and she considers that a good thing.
“All of these things, thank God, I think, have changed. And, um, I see people like be a bit more relaxed, which I think is—I think is good.”
Bottom line: Becky Lynch spent years racing against deadlines that mostly existed in her own head, only to build the biggest part of her career after she thought time was supposed to have already run out.
What do you make of Becky Lynch believing WWE would get rid of her because of her age? Let us know in the comments.
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