Topics: Life, News, Parenting, Real Life, Sport, UK News, Entertainment, TV And Film
WWE's top female star Becky Lynch 'The Man' has opened up about what she's learnt from the role that's helped inform how she parents.
One of WWE's highest-paid wrestlers Becky Lynch - real name Rebecca Quin - from Limerick, Ireland, first discovered her love for wrestling when she was 'about 12' after watching it on TV with her brother.
Despite initially making fun of it as being 'for babies,' she became 'hooked' by Mick Foley who 'didn't look like a typical WWE superstar'.
But what does a 'typical WWE superstar' look like? Well, it's certainly not Lynch, and the 36-year-old isn't just any old WWE wrestler, but one of the most recognised and highest paid performers of them all.
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Although, hopefully Lynch will be an example of a 'typical WWE superstar' soon, the male-dominated industry slowly learning to share the limelight with more women performers.
Lynch tells Tyla how she came to where she is today - number seven on Khel Now's 2023 list of the top WWE earners with £3.1 million - and how her role has helped her as a mum.
It wasn't until Lynch was 15 she gave wrestling a try, with her explaining to Tyla: "When I was 15, I was getting up to things that I shouldn't have been getting up to. I was failing PE and all that kind of stuff.
"My brother discovered that they were opening a wrestling school in Bray County, Wicklow. Which is about an hour away from me. So I just went along and I wasn't any good. It was awful.
"Like I said, I'd failed PE, but for the first time I felt part of a community that was accepting and it was kind of full of misfits and nobody could really judge you.
"It quickly became a family and I loved everything about it. I loved trying to improve. I loved getting better. I loved seeing hard work paying off."
As much as her introduction into wrestling made her feel part of a 'family' it hasn't always been easy for Lynch being in such a male-dominated industry 'which has been that way for decades'.
"Up until quite recently, with a few exceptions dotted throughout history, women were always kind of seen as either an attraction piece or 'lesser than'," she continues.
"So when you have grown up in a culture that views women like that, then you have to change the culture and you have to change the way women are looked at and you have to change everything that surrounds that.
"Everybody's perception of what women can do, of what they can bring in, how many tickets they can sell, how engaging the storylines."
Lynch notes women previously 'never got given a chance [or] opportunity to learn how to be the Main Event' or 'how to tell stories' so it's been 'hard' to change that narrative.
However, the 36-year-old believes women WWE stars 'are getting closer and closer to erasing that narrative completely'.
She says: "Now we are the Main Event. Now we are capable of drawing and carrying the show just as much as the men."
It's the result of women overcoming the restraints previously placed on them in the industry which inspires Lynch to be a role model for the next generation of women WWE wrestlers.
"At one point they said women can't main event WrestleMania, women can't be the biggest stars on the show, and well, hell, I've been it. I've done it.
"So being able to pass on whatever I've learned to the people coming up behind me so that they don't have that same narrative, they don't have that same judgment, those same obstacles.
"Working with people who haven't been in my spot to get them to one day be in my spot. I think has been quite rewarding."
Lynch's career as a WWE wrestler is also rewarding in how it impacts how she approaches her role as a mother - Lynch sharing two-year-old Roux Lopez with fellow wrestler Seth Rollins.
And the biggest lesson which being a WWE star has taught her to take on as a parent? "You have to go with the flow."
Being live on TV every week has taught Lynch you have to 'adapt, adjust and move on' and ultimately, just 'do your best'.
Lynch jokes Roux is 'an awesome tyrant toddler' and is 'very determined to get her way' so she has to go with the flow as well as have 'a lot of patience'.
"Sometimes that can be like the creative process. I will differ in my view to what they want and I have to adapt and accept and be patient and go 'Okay, well, it's about compromise'.
"The other thing is learning about the passing of time and how quickly it all goes by. Roux has gone from a little baby lying on her back not doing anything to being this opinionated, walking, talking, hilarious human.
"That then applies to wrestling and what we're doing because with wrestling, what we put our bodies through, it's about enjoying all the stages throughout that."
And Lynch's role as a mother and wrestler intertwine even more given Roux travels the world with the 36-year-old.
"She has been all over the globe. She comes pretty much everywhere with us and she's a great little traveler," Lynch reflects. "She makes it so easy on us - or as easy as traveling the world with a toddler can be."
Ultimately, unless Lynch had become a wrestler, she wouldn't have met her husband and subsequently wouldn't have gone on to have Roux.
"It's given me more than I could have ever imagined. It's given me my family. [...] It’s opened doors that never would have been opened for me before. It's allowed me to travel the world. It’s put a roof over my head. It's put food in my belly. It's given me everything."
Catch Becky Lynch tonight on WWE NXT live on TNT Sports.
