In the main event of Clash in Paris last night, CM Punk had the World Heavyweight Championship in his grasp, but was taken out by a masked assailant who hit him with a low blow.
They were unmaked as Rollins' real-life wife, Becky Lynch, suggesting the Women's Intercontinental Champion is now part of his "Vision" stable. After the PLE ended, the Second City Saint's wife, AJ Lee, was mentioned during the post-show, and Punk was seen taking a close-up look at a "PUNK BRING BACK AJ LEE" sign as he made his way to the back.
Unsurprisingly, speculation is running rampant that Lee could make a return to WWE to help Punk turn the tide against Rollins and Lynch. She hasn't wrestled since the RAW after WrestleMania 31, meaning it's been over a decade since we last saw her compete.
According to Fightful Select, Lee's name has been brought up in "numerous" pitches among WWE creative lately. WWE sources tell the site that they're hopeful about Lee joining forces with Punk to battle Rollins and Lynch, and it seems there's more traction to the possibility of Lee competing again than there has been in many years.
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, based on how they'd treated her husband, that wasn't overly surprising, and Mendez hasn't stepped back into the ring since.
Punk has been asked about the possibility of Lee returning on multiple occasions and previously 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."
Stay tuned for updates as we have them.