AJ Lee (now better known by her real name, AJ Mendez) will go down as one of the greatest female wrestlers of all time. While it's a shame her WWE run didn't last a little longer, the former Divas Champion eventually being inducted into the WWE Hall of Fame is surely a given.
Lee played a crucial role in changing the perception of female wrestlers in WWE, and fans were devastated when she left the company in 2015. Of course, given how they'd treated her husband, CM Punk, that wasn't overly surprising and Mendez hasn't stepped back into the ring since.
A lot has changed in the past near-decade, including the fact the Second City Saint is back in WWE and arguably happier than he's ever been. Could that result in AJ also eventually stepping back into the ring in her old stomping grounds?
Punk was once again been asked about the possibility in an interview with Cheap Heat and said, "She 100% supersedes me. That’s the fun thing about wrestling fans. They look for stuff that necessarily isn’t there. That’s kind of the fun of it. Everyone is talking about, ‘Who is going to main event WrestleMania?’ ‘Who is going to enter the Royal Rumble?’ ‘Who is going to comeback?’"
"They are always looking around this time of year for big returns. I had mine last year, I think hers would be bigger than mine, but again, I’m kinda hands off on the deal," the Best in the World admitted.
Quizzed on whether AJ would prefer to return to WWE than have joined him in AEW, Punk explained, "Yeah, I would say it definitely did. It’s more of a workload thing for her. She is very busy. I’m not trying to not talk about it, but I’m also trying to temper people’s expectations. If she wraps up some stuff that she’s working on and she has the time and she feels like dipping her toe back in or jumping back in the pool, she’ll let us know."
"Her and I are similar in the regard that we’re out of time. You could pluck us both off from where we started and put us in any kind of era. I definitely think she would thrive here," he continued. "She thrived back then when the focus wasn’t women, and now, this past week, every single television show we had opened with a women’s match and main evented with a women’s match. You can’t tell me she wouldn’t fit in there."
We have to believe WWE would be willing to pay whatever AJ wants to step back into the ring, but whether it's something she wants at this stage in her career is another matter altogether.
Plenty of wrestlers have returned after decade-long absences (heck, Punk was pretty much one of them) and with the Royal Rumble fast approaching in early February, we're sure this won't be the last time AJ Lee's name is mentioned online in the coming months.