Seeds Already Planted for 3-Time WWE Champion’s Comeback After 10 Years

WWE has planted seeds for AJ Lee’s return.

The three-time Divas Champion last stepped into the squared circle on March 30, 2015, during an episode of Monday Night Raw. It was a six-woman tag team bout where she teamed with Paige and Naomi against The Bella Twins and Natalya, with Naomi scoring the pinfall.

Shortly after, the company announced her retirement from in-ring competition due to serious cervical spine injuries she had been suffering. Since then, she has been absent from WWE programming for over a decade, keeping fans hopeful and curious about a possible return as her husband, CM Punk, made his own surprising comeback at Survivor Series in 2023.

At Clash in Paris on August 31, 2025, Becky Lynch attacked CM Punk during a Fatal 4-Way match for the World Heavyweight Championship. Just as Punk was on the verge of winning, Lynch’s low blow helped her husband, Seth Rollins, retain the title.

After the match, a fan held a sign saying, “Punk, bring back AJ Lee,” which caught CM Punk’s attention. He briefly contemplated the sign and teased the crowd, stirring wild speculation about The Black Widow’s return. The moment didn’t go unnoticed during the post-show commentary, where Big E and Jackie Redmond joked about the idea, with Big E suggesting Punk should team up with his wife to take on Lynch and Rollins, and Redmond acknowledged it.

AJ Lee Is on Her Way to WWE

Speaking on the Busted Open podcast, ex-WWE star Dolph Ziggler, aka Nic Nemeth, weighed in on AJ Lee’s WWE return. He believes Big E and Jackie Reymond’s comments on the Clash in Paris post-show were a solid sign the Stamford-based promotion has already started the preparations to welcome the Geek Goddess back home.

AJ and Big E are, on-screen and I believe in real life, genuine friends, and I don’t even know if that everyone just.. no one gave them any production notes, no one said anything, and just said, ‘Hey, this just opens the door for this maybe.’ That’s the case but now genuinely, two people at WWE are saying something now we’ve
definitely planted a seed because that, even though 30,000 people are there and a 100,000 people buy it or whatever the situation is, millions of people are going to see Big E and Jackie Redmond’s comments and go, ‘Oh, they already planted a seed.’ Whether it was on purpose or not. (From 19:33 to 20:05)

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