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Imagine a divas division without AJ Lee. Well, that is going to be the case in the years to come as the crazy diva announced her retirement from professional wrestling. Although we knew that it was coming at one point or the other, the actual announcement has left the WWE Universe in shock.The landscape of the Divas division will be changed drastically in the absence of AJ and WWE will have a lot of work to do for fixing the same. But before we look ahead to the future, let’s take a trip back to the past, shall we? AJ was, hands down, one of the brightest divas of her era and deserves to be remembered for the hard work she did.So, since the entire WWE Universe is debating about why AJ Lee decided to call it a day, here is a look at some of the things that most of us didn’t know about AJ Lee.
#1 The tattoo on the back of her neck
A lot of WWE fans out there might’ve not noticed the tattoo on AJ’s neck and even if you noticed it, it would have been hard to understand. This is because; the tattoo on AJ’s neck is tattooed in Tally marks, which is basically a unary numerical system. There is a whole Wikipedia page dedicated to the same so if you are interested, go on and try it.
Coming back to AJ, the tattoo she has in her neck shows the numbers 6, 16 and 13 in Tally marks. It resembles June 16, 2013 which was the date of her first Divas Championship win in the WWE. And who did she win against? Kaitlyn of course.
#2 Her inspiration was Lita
AJ Lee’s dreams of becoming a professional wrestler sprouted out when she was 12 years old. She wanted to break the walls of the male dominated industry and drew inspiration from the lights of Miss. Elizabeth and Lita.
Lita in particular, proved to be a big inspiration for the young AJ. The video of the 12 year old AJ crying out when she saw her idol is still making rounds around the internet and it shows the amount of love and passion that AJ had back then. The irony however is, AJ Lee is now married to the superstar that once dated her idol, Lita. But we don’t care about that, do we?
#3 She was trained by Jay Lethal
AJ was one of those rare divas who didn’t come from the WWE’s developmental system. Although she did wrestle in the Florida Championship Wrestling she wasn’t trained there. She took baby steps in Wrestling with former TNA and current Ring of Honor star Jay Lethal.
So if you ever wondered where she got the different style from, there you go. AJ and Lethal was a very active tag team in the independent circuit during AJ’s early days and she was a reigning tag team champion alongside Lethal when she was signed by WWE. The two were also in a real – life relationship at some point and broke up eventually.
#4 She dropped out of college due to financial issues
AJ Lee was born into a poor family. According to her, she had to go through a lot of hardships during her childhood which included living in motels and cars. AJ Lee had to do part time jobs to meet the ends and after graduating from Memorial High School, AJ attended the New York University's Tisch School of the Arts in New York City for majoring in film and television production and writing.
However, due to the financial constraints that she had, AJ dropped out of the college. She then did many part time and full time jobs to join a wrestling school. And after some experience in the independent wrestling scene, AJ managed to make US$1,500 which was the entry fees for WWE try outs. She impressed the WWE officials and the rest is history.
#5 And comics too
If her love for gaming was not enough for making her a geek goddess, wait till you hear about her love for comics. Once again, AJ credits her brother for this passion. She started reading comics back in her fourth grade. She was in love with Marvel’s X-Men, Fantastic Four and Spider-Man with some extra love kept aside for the X-Men series.
She also points out Cyclops as her favorite character in the X-Men series. And though Wolverine is one of the most popular characters in X-Men, AJ never connected with him since he had some issues with managing his anger. Lucky CM Punk right?
#6 Gamers, note this one down
Ever dreamt about a girl who loves games? AJ Lee is just that, and more. She is a die-hard gamer and credits her brother for making her so. Xbox and Playstation are the favorite platforms for AJ when it comes to gaming while Arkham City is apparently one of her favorite games.
In 2012, she became the first ever female winner of WWE’s Superstar Challenge where 16 other superstars competed in a WWE 12 tournament. And the best part is, she had no previous experience with the game. She received recognition from the Guinness World Records Gamer's Edition for the same and that gamers, is your dream girl.
#7 Kaitlyn is her best friend
Kaitlyn was quite arguably the best nemesis of AJ when it comes to her wrestling career. The divas had a memorable summer feud that held the divas division together and managed to make eachother during the run. And though they were full on enemies on the screen, AJ and Kaitlyn are best friends off it.
The friendship started during their NXT days back in 2010. AJ made her main roster debut alongside Kaitlyn as well and they were together called the Chick busters. Both the divas shared a great bond through the years and when Kaitlyn decided to retire, she wanted AJ Lee to be her last opponent.
#8 She had a teased relationship with Primo
AJ Lee was named as one of the contestants of NXT back in 2010. It was an all divas edition of the show and the WWE pro she got was Primo (one of the masked guys in Los Matadores). WWE managed to tease a relationship between the two throughout the show and it all culminated in the finals where Primo and AJ Lee had a sensual kiss.
WWE wanted to move forward with the relationship but for some reason they were forced to drop it. As far as AJ’s NXT run was concerned, she managed to end up in the final three but the show was won by Kaitlyn, speaking of which…
#9 Her other ring names
The real name of AJ Lee is April Jeanette Mendez. Just like the entire wrestler out there, she also had numerous names over her career before settling for the popular and well known ‘AJ Lee’ tag. Her first ring name was Miss. April and she used it during her stay in the Independent circuit.
Afterwards when WWE signed her up, the company decided to give her a makeover. When she was working in the then developmental territory of WWE, Florida Championship Wrestling (FCW), AJ was named April Lee. Sometime later, WWE finally came up with the AJ Lee ring name and it has been with her ever since.
#10 AJ describes herself as a tomboy
Now, for the people out there who are not familiar with the ‘tomboy’ reference, here goes: tomboy is a girl that exhibits characteristics and behavior of a typical boy. You might have not felt the same about AJ but she apparently thinks so. She says that her love for games and comics (which we will see later) is the reason for this description and is not at all embarrassed in any way.
Even if AJ describes herself as a tomboy, it is pretty hard for the fans to admit the same since she is hands down one of the hottest divas in recent history even if the hotness is mixed with a good amount of craziness and weirdness.
