WWE released a new edition of Chronicle this past weekend and it followed Becky Lynch’s journey from November 27 through December 11. Among other topics of discussion, she talked about being trained by Finn Balor at his pro wrestling school and also her seven-year battle with depression that made her leave pro wrestling for a long time.
Lynch started her wrestling career at the early age of 16 when she followed her brother to the wrestling school of Finn Balor. She talked about her expectations and admitted her initial attempts at wrestling were terrible.
“So I decided I was gonna get fit. And I was an unconventional kid, I didn’t want to go to a gym. So I was gonna take up kickboxing, but low and behold my brother found out that they were opening a school in Bray [County Wicklow], which was about an hour and half from where I lived. [It was] opened by Fergal Devitt/Finn Balor.
“I was the only girl in the place. And I expected to go in and see like a warehouse, and a bunch of big tough guys, and a wrestling ring, and a big sign on the door. I walk into this little school gym. There were 6 blue, padded mats on the ground, and there’s a bunch of skinny teenage lads with their hair trying to grow it, trying to look like the Hardy Boyz. And I was like, alright, this is it, here I am. And you have to believe me when I say I was awful. I was God awful. Most uncoordinated, couldn’t pick up a damn thing, but my God did I love it. And I was just – I couldn’t believe that I was getting to do it.”
In August 2005, Becky suddenly disappeared from wrestling. She only wrestled three independent matches before returning to the ring full-time at NXT in April 2013. Lynch revealed the reason for her seven-year departure from wrestling, saying that depression and the fear of succeeding are the main causes.
“I left for seven years. Seven years. It was a lot of self-sabotage, like, people talk about the fear of failure, right? But they also don’t talk enough, I think, about the fear of success. Because at the time, I was 19 and I was doing well. And I was making a name for myself. I also didn’t really have any support, or any backing, or any guidance. Like, my mom didn’t want me wrestling. And if you weren’t in WWE you were off fending for yourself and I wasn’t making a lot of money. I’d make like, what? $50 dollars a weekend, if even.
“So it was just a lot of, I got so in my head. I got to succeed, I got to succeed, I got to succeed, I got to succeed. But then it was like, oh, but what if I do? And what if I’m not good enough? Ya know? And all these things. So I kinda got depressed, I got confused, I got lost, I got hurt in a match, and I kinda used that as an excuse to kinda step away. And I couldn’t even face up to the fact that I couldn’t face up to it. I had to hide behind the excuse of, oh, I’m hurt. Which is why I think I take extra exception to when I’m genuinely hurt and people are calling me out like I’m hiding behind something.”
Becky added that she could no longer recognize herself. She claimed that “The Man” character and what she has become is the result of gratitude and understanding that this was what she was meant to do.
“I completely lost myself. And what we see here, we see me being built up, and me changing and me taking over. That’s all from below zero that I’ve had to come up, and it’s a little step at a time, at a time, but it’s even coming from that low point when I was 19 to where I am now. I’ve been through all this and now I am so grateful, and I know what I’m meant to do because I lost it all.”
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h/t to Wrestling Inc for the transcription.
