Incomparable

by Brie Bella

  I have daddy issues. I’m needy. I have to know someone is there who I can talk to and lean on. As much as I crave freedom—romantic and otherwise—I struggle to stay single. Fortunately, I don’t feel like I remake all of the same mistakes from guy to guy. In retrospect, every one of them seems like it was a course correction on the last. I really believe that early, formative relationships do the lion’s share of the work of showing you what you can and cannot tolerate in love and what you ultimately value in a partner. I also believe that when you’re young, one of the lines you have to watch is that of codependency. In the process of giving yourself wholly over to a relationship, you have to learn how to find where you end and someone else begins. While Ken was more dependent on me by the end, I got to really sample the other side of the equation next. Enter Jake.

  I met Jake when Brie and I had been hired to dress up as naughty nurses for a magazine shoot with him. He was really, really late. Rudely, horribly late. When he finally decided to grace us with his presence, he walked in, looked at me, and said, “My dream girl.” My reaction? “Eww … what?” I was nineteen and he was twenty-nine. I told him we’d only hang out with him if he went and bought us beer. He was a big-deal Mexican pro athlete, who used to wear these sports jerseys. He was exactly my type. Tough, gangster-ish, built. He was also exceptionally charming and funny and really sweet. I thought he was definitely going to be the love of my life. While he had many wonderful qualities, Jake was also jealous and possessive. We both were in our own ways. I was still at that point in life where I thought love should be dramatic and all-consuming. To be fair, I hadn’t seen a real model of something more sustainable growing up. I assumed it was perfectly normal to both hate and love someone within the span of twenty minutes—to fight aggressively and then want to make up and have sex minutes later.

  The fact that Jake was ten years older than me makes a lot of sense when I look back. To this day I struggle with my desperate desire for a father figure—someone to tell me what to do, put a fence around me in some ways, be my protector. He did and was all of those things. I completely put my own life on the back burner. This was convenient in many ways because I didn’t really know what I wanted my life to be, and his life was pretty great. So I followed him around for two-and-a-half-years—to Alaska, to the X Games, to wherever he determined we should go next. I really just checked out, which flipped Brie out. Rightly, she pointed out to me that I was living for Jake. I had stopped doing things with my friends, and I had given up on my own life goals. I think that it’s moments like these that can fully derail women. It’s hard to get it going in your early twenties, as every step feels momentous. You have no traction or experience under your belt, and you don’t have a network of people who can guide you or help you to your next big break. I’ve watched friends, even with fancy degrees from four-year colleges, just kind of blow it. They didn’t push aggressively against those moments of not knowing WTF to do with their lives. It seems that if you leave it to life to figure it out for you, it won’t always turn out for the best.

  I remember going to a Blockbuster (RIP) with Jake to rent a movie. We walked past the WWE pay-per-view section. Not surprisingly, he was furious about my WWE contract. In fact, I’m kind of surprised I actually carried through with the audition knowing he would not be supportive. He was mad because it would take me to Tampa, instead of to Salt Lake City, where he primarily lived. Plus he was really uncomfortable with the prospect of the guys. Honestly, that was the last thing on my mind. When it’s your job, you’re not really checking out the dudes in their tights and trunks (though admittedly, there were a lot of backstage shenanigans at that point in WWE history). He came to visit me once, saw the dudes, and just lost it. I think Jake’s jealousy was probably more of a function of his own struggles with fidelity. He often told me that if we stayed together, he’d probably cheat on me. It was a messed-up thing to say, but I appreciated his honesty. Also, I’ve learned along the way that if someone is jealous in a way that doesn’t seem deserved at all, it’s probably because they themselves shouldn’t be trusted.

  We had been together for two-and-a-half-years, and I thought we would be together forever. But our relationship unraveled in a few short months. I knew I’d found my true calling in the wrestling ring in Florida, but it was still really hard on me to let that relationship go. I was so wrapped up in him, and wanted to please him so desperately, that I was crushed when he broke up with me. We had a deep connection, particularly in the bedroom. We had been inseparable until wrestling came between us. The jealousy was exhausting and unsustainable, but it still didn’t feel like ending it was my choice.

  Obviously, the end of our relationship was the right thing. It was definitely the right thing for my time at FCW, where Brie and I were training in developmental. Wrestling is consuming. It’s a strange, insular world, and it’s best pursued when you can keep your head fully in the ring without distractions from loved ones who are far away. So even though I was depressed—devastated, really—that Jake had broken up with me, it was way better for my career. I could be fully physically present. It also established wrestling as the other lover—the thing I wanted more than the love of my life. With everything that I had sacrificed, there was no way I was backing down from making it to the main roster. Even if I had to fight a lot of girls to get there.

  In making it as a professional athlete, I was also able to reconnect with the primary positive identity of my childhood. I took ahold of that athlete plot line again. And going back to that, reclaiming that title, allowed me to vanquish some of the darker memories from Arizona, too. I acknowledged that I could be the athletic star I remembered without carrying my victimhood into the future. I was a warrior. I was a superhero. And most important, I had learned how to use my body to fight back.

  CHAPTER 5 HEEL, YES!

  2007–2012

  Tampa, Florida

  San Diego, California

  Brie

  Our very first live wrestling match took place in a Jewish Community Center in Tampa. Nicole and I were playing up the sexy tomboy jock gimmick. We went to the high school sporting goods supply store for gear and bought Tampa Bay Buccaneers jerseys and lace-up football pants, which we extended into bell bottoms with help from a local seamstress. We stood around in the arts and crafts room at the center and waited until it was our turn. When you’re on the WWE main roster, they count you down until you hear your entrance music kick in. But when you’re wrestling at the local JCC, you hide behind a curtain, or in the arts and crafts room, and you can’t hear jack shit. We kept peeking out thinking that they were playing our music. I wanted to vomit, cry, quit.

  There were probably only eighty people in the crowd, max, including our mom, but the stakes still felt high. Nicole and I were wrestling Krissy Vaine and Nattie Neidhart, who were nice enough to put us over—i.e., to let us win. Now, it’s never your call whether you get to win or lose, but you can make your opponent’s victory unpleasant if you want, and a lot of women choose that path. Nattie and Krissy were never like that, though. They were happy for us to get a win right out of the gate. It was nice of them to do it without putting up a fuss—both of them were big factors in our early growth as wrestlers because they were some of the only supportive faces in the locker room. Nattie, in particular, taught us the ropes, the ring, the rules.

  It was our first match, so of course it left an indelible mark. What was also incredible about that day was that we met fans there who have followed us to this day—they still meet us at the Tampa airport when we fly into town for WWE. After that first match, they came up to us at the JCC snack bar and asked for our autographs, and it felt amazing. If you’re curious about what making it as a wrestler is really like, The Wrestler, starring Mickey Rourke, is a heartbreaking must-watch. It’s pretty accurate: church parking lots, rec centers … really anywhere that has room for a ring and a few stands. You’re doing signings at picnic tables, sitting around for thirty minutes or so just waiting for a handful o
f people to come for an autograph. There are many moments when you feel like a fool. But you have to start somewhere, and we were grateful to be there.

  Nicole

  The gnarliest early match was at the flea market. They put up a tarp next to a stall selling dream catchers, and we were expected to change in there, more or less out on display for the strolling shoppers who were looking for bargains, not half-naked wrestlers. The ring itself was in the parking lot. It was scorching hot—epically hot—and the mat baked under the sun. We all got terrible mat burn, but not from being dragged across the ring—just from taking bumps on a scalding surface. It felt like wrestling on a stove. If we hadn’t been so head-over-heels in love with wrestling, that match might have been the moment when we called it. It just seemed so barbaric.

  I remember at one event, waiting around in the church kitchen to go on. We had to keep cracking open the door to listen for our entrance music and would make eye contact with the ten fans out there every time—though I don’t think they were fans, I think they were just confused church members. They certainly didn’t know what to make of us when we came barreling out of that kitchen. They didn’t boo, they just watched us, mouths agape. After matches, we’d roll over to Applebee’s for drink specials, $5 wine, and cheap food—after all, we were making $500 a week, so every penny counted.

  Brie

  Those matches were essential training. The stakes may have been low, but the circumstances were real. Wrestling gets a bad rap for being “scripted,” but the reality is that inside that ring, a lot of it is improvised. Before you step out on the ramp, you know who needs to emerge victorious, but the voyage to that moment is often unplanned. In the early days, we would identify a few key “spots,” or turning points—like when the babyface, aka the good guy, would begin to make their comeback against the heel. But the reality is that the more you have to memorize in terms of choreography, the more stress you inject into an already stressful situation. You can freeze—really go completely blank—if you’re trying to recall a planned move or moment of choreography mid-match. If you’re racing to get to move A, B, C, or D, then you don’t have time to stop and think and react in the moment. Developmental was critical for learning how to get into the flow, to read each other’s body, to learn how to talk to each other throughout the match.

  Nicole

  I’ll never forget my first singles match with Nattie soon after we got up to the main roster. I did a Lou Thesz press, which is a jumping straddle, and we accidentally hit heads so hard I totally lost my bearings. I just spaced, like a deer in headlights. We got up and then just stood there, staring at each other until I panicked and kicked her in the vagina, just because I knew I had to do something. You could hear the groans ricocheting throughout the stands as they felt her pain. When I got backstage, Vince pulled me aside and said, “We don’t kick girls like that here.” Fortunately, Nattie could not have been nicer about it, and we still laugh about it today.

  The other reason that you don’t want to over-choreograph a match in advance is that things change all the time—you might be told when you arrive that you have ten minutes for a live match, which is shortened to five right before you step out for your entrance music. Then as you get started, the ref might whisper after ninety seconds that it’s time to “go home,” meaning that the comeback needs to start immediately because the match has been shortened to two minutes without anyone officially telling you. The coaches in developmental put us through those paces. We learned how to become flexible, to move through the plot effortlessly and efficiently so we could still sell a great show to the audience despite a condensed timeline.

  In developmental, you really see it all—I’ll never forget when we had to wrestle at Daytona Beach for a bunch of bikers. They loved every second of the Divas action but harassed and cajoled the men. You can imagine the spectacle of the guys in their leathers and the guys in their tights. And then there was the time at the middle school, when the audience erupted in chants of “Spic! Spic! Spic!” That was fun! All the ups and downs and randomness only steeled us for the big event. We learned how to flow in the face of racism, audience hate, audience love, a switched script, and the fact that things just didn’t always go our way or how we hoped they would turn out. Wrestling requires flexibility and a certain openness.

  Brie

  Our early days in WWE were pretty brutal. While we’d certainly eaten some shit during our time in developmental back in FCW, the women on the main roster knew how to step it up a notch, as there was TV time and mainstage matches at stake. But we decided to just take it. A lot of girls wouldn’t—they couldn’t stand the hazing and bad treatment, and they would ultimately just bail. You really, really had to have a passion for wrestling and a love for the ring for it to feel worth it. But we just smiled, because we could tell that in WWE, there’s no way around it, only through it. The backstage operates by tribal law. There are many unspoken rules enforced by other wrestlers. Depending on who has seniority, it can be really oppressive. It still boggles my mind that they wouldn’t let us change in the locker room when we debuted, for example. Instead we had to change and get ready in the arena bathroom. That happened for the first few weeks, until the office caught us in there and told the girls they had to let us change in the locker room. It all felt really silly. Annoying, but at the end of the day, just stupid. And embarrassing if I’m honest. When you’re new in a scene like that, you really just want to escape notice and fly under the radar. You don’t want to be the focal point of everyone’s hate and frustration. Honestly, though, neither FCW nor WWE was nearly as bad as what we’d been through in Arizona. And this time, we were in charge of our fates. They couldn’t take away our smiles, or the fact that we were happy-go-lucky girls, thrilled to be away from bad memories, and thrilled to have our futures in our own hands. We weren’t going to let anyone fuck that up for us.

  And so we stuck to it. Nicole and I are really hard workers. We learned that from our dad. He may not have been perfect, but he knew how to put his back into it. He was a farmer—he managed a tree farm when we were young—and he always instilled in us that life is many things, but it is never easy. If you want something, you always have to work for it. Luck and opportunity are just by-products of hard work. We also knew how to be respectful and show deference to all the women wrestlers who had come before us and made our time there possible. What blew my mind, particularly at a place like WWE that is so character-driven, is that there was plenty of room for all of us. You know, I have a twin sister, who is as pretty and talented as I am—if anyone should have felt threatened, it should have been me. Growing up like that, constantly compared to Nicole, I know how ridiculous it is to feel competitive with other women. There were certainly a lot of battles for equality to be fought at WWE, and I understood why the women felt frustrated. Still, it seemed awfully silly to think that our battles should be with each other. By infighting and stepping all over each other, we were enforcing the cycle. We were all just keeping ourselves small.

  The thing that was ultimately the most frustrating was that it wasn’t clear what the other women were trying to accomplish. Maybe they were trying to haze us to the extent that we’d give up and bail. We knew we needed to wait in line, that there were ten women ahead of us. But we also knew that no woman in the locker room had control over that line in the first place, since everything is dictated by management. I think that maybe that’s why the women behaved so badly. They sniffed out scarcity, and felt completely powerless to control their own futures. It was easier to shit on us than to submit to their own powerlessness. I think they felt that they had to “do” something, even though there was really nothing to be done but work hard and hope for the best.

  Nicole

  Besides the locker room bullshit, there are other rituals and rules at WWE that are easy to accidentally break, particularly because we didn’t have anyone to really show us the ropes or tell us what to do. There is an unspoken rule, for example, that you must shake han
ds with everyone backstage and say hello. You can’t walk past someone without doing this, even if they’re deep in conversation. You’re expected to sort of wait, awkwardly, until they finish talking and you can pay your respects. In the early days, we assumed we could circle back when people were free for conversation, because that seemed like the normal and noninvasive thing to do. But we learned quickly. The culture has evolved at WWE a lot since then. Thanks to the #MeToo movement, light is being thrown on how screwed up office culture is for so many women, regardless of industry. But as you can imagine, Brie and I were … upset. It was really scary to show up to work, as you felt like you could unknowingly mess up at every turn. We often felt like we were walking on eggshells. There were nonsensical rules and rituals that you could never fully know until someone was kind enough to initiate you. Let’s just say that there was no formal onboarding process, and since we all work as independent contractors for WWE, there is no HR.

  No matter the bullshit, you never went to the office—it just wasn’t done. We were all expected to settle everything between ourselves. And sometimes that meant that a locker room meeting would be called against you. These were unofficial. I don’t think the office even knew that this sort of thing happened, but a locker room meeting involved a number of female wrestlers marshaling against another wrestler. A year into our time on the main roster, there was a locker room meeting held against me, Brie, and Nattie. They were pissed at me and Brie for getting too much TV time. They were pissed at Nattie for being “annoying,” though it was never made clear what that really meant. It was never clear to us what we were supposed to do about our TV time, which wasn’t ours to control. They also felt like we had formed too many friendships with the guys. We liked hanging with them, particularly because there was way less drama. So we didn’t feel like giving that up, either.