Add as a preferred source on Google AJ Lee spent more than a decade away from the ring believing her career had ended exactly the way it was supposed to. Her return to WWE, though, let her experience something she once assumed would only be there for the generations who came after her.
Appearing on The Nikki & Brie Show, taped at Fanatics Fest, Lee said she didn’t feel like she had any unfinished business when she left the company in 2015.
“Did I ever think I was gonna come back? Oh, no. I think I was kind of wrap stuff up in such a perfect bow, it just felt like I didn’t wanna tarnish that in a way and it felt so completed, I didn’t feel like I had anything left to do, and then seeing how the business evolved, I kind of saw it, like, when you’re a senior in high school and you graduate, you’re like, ‘I hope those freshmen have better teachers. I hope they get a field…’ You don’t expect it for you. So it was just an extra wonderful surprise and a treat to be like, ‘Oh! I get to hang out with this new class? That’s awesome.'”
AJ Lee returned on the September 5, 2025, episode of SmackDown, backing CM Punk against Becky Lynch and Seth Rollins. Two weeks later, she had her first match in more than a decade at Wrestlepalooza.
The new run also brought a title that didn’t appear to be part of the plan. At Elimination Chamber, in front of the Chicago crowd, Lee defeated Lynch to win the Women’s Intercontinental Championship. The reign ended 49 days later, on the first night of WrestleMania 42.
Months before that comment, AJ had already called this stretch of her career a “bonus round.” She explained that she came back without the pressure she used to carry and pointed to the current state of the women’s locker room, naming Lyra Valkyria, Roxanne Perez, Liv Morgan, Stephanie Vaquer and Rhea Ripley among the wrestlers she’d like to work with.
Lee hasn’t appeared on WWE programming since her loss to Lynch on April 18, 2026.