Becky Lynch said the pressure of being pushed as a star in Japan as a teenager was part of what led her to walk away from wrestling for seven years.
Lynch trained as a teenager and worked the independent scene as Rebecca Knox, appearing for All Pro Wrestling, SHIMMER and promotions in Japan before joining WWE. Speaking on the No-Contest Wrestling Podcast, she said she was living away from home and out of her depth.
“At that same time, when I was brought over to Japan, the promoter thought that, you know, I was 18. I had dyed blonde hair and these brown eyes, and he thought I looked like Britney Spears. I didn’t, but as he had told me, ‘Ah, gaijin, all same face.’ And so he was trying to push me as this star,” Lynch said. “And the pressure of everything, and ‘I got to figure it out.’ And I’m scared I’m going to look stupid and I self-combusted.”
Lynch said there was nobody she was letting help her at the time.
“There was no real mentor. Or maybe there was, but then I was trying to push them away because I was scared. I was still a teen, I was still a kid trying to figure it all out. And I quit. I just left. I couldn’t take it. I got too lost and too in my own head and stepped away for seven years,” she said.