Incomparable

by Brie Bella

  We took it, and put our heads down, and kept going. Due to my past, I’ve developed a high tolerance for bullshit—truly, nothing can break me. Brie and I both have a high tolerance for physical pain. The locker room stuff was annoying, and it made us dread going backstage, but it never got under our skin enough to make us want to give up. And when it came to the physical pain, that is just part of the game. Ultimately, the goal was to train to the point where you were a good enough wrestler that you wouldn’t get injured, but that doesn’t mean that you don’t feel those moves, even when your adrenaline is doing its job to get you through it so you can get back on your feet. And getting back on your feet is key. You have to master the physical craft before you can learn how to tell actual stories with your body and elevate what’s happening in the ring to a performance worth watching. (Honestly, at the beginning, you’re just trying to get through it.)

  I think one of the reasons that we made it through those early years was that we acknowledged how much we had to learn. We acknowledged that we were really green. We knew we had potential, but we also knew that we needed to go to school, as much as possible, to learn all that we could about wrestling. We never thought, “Oh, we’ve made it, the fans are into us, we’re set.” We knew that we needed to grow and evolve with the product. We couldn’t rest on our laurels of having our niche, just because we were the first female identical twins to debut in WWE.

  Nicole

  For a long time, our shtick was Twin Magic, which is where one of us would hide under the ring to tag in halfway through the match for the win. It was fun for a long time, and the crowds loved it, but we wanted to develop as individuals, too. We were always pitching the producers and writers ideas for evolving the storyline because we wanted to push it and try new things. It became clear early on that at WWE you have to know how to fight both in and out of the ring. You have to be able to advocate for yourself, otherwise you’re quickly swept into oblivion. This is not to say that advocating meant that anyone would listen. But you had to have one foot forward at all times, feeding them ideas to the point that they would rather deal with your storyline than listen to you any longer. Hey, perseverance pays off!

  So, whenever we felt like it had been too long since we’d been on TV, we’d fight for a storyline to get back on. At one point, we hadn’t been on TV for eleven weeks, which is dangerously long—this was at a point when they would let wrestlers go seasonally. If they weren’t using you, it could be quite ominous. So we hustled and pitched ourselves to assist the celebrity guest hosts. Bob Barker was on the schedule, so we asked Johnny Ace if we could accompany him as the Barker Beauties. Johnny thought it had potential, so he told us to go and pitch Vince. Bob Barker was amazing, and we pulled it off. This cemented a long run of accompanying the celebrities. WWE backstage is pretty overwhelming, so we would meet them when they arrived and give them a tour and make them feel comfortable. Hugh Jackman, Kristen Wiig, a very stoned Snoop Dogg, Will Ferrell … it was really fun.

  Next, we asked if we could have a storyline on Superstars. This was their C show, which they would record before Live would go live. It’s not the best gig, but we figured if we were going to show up for work, we wanted to work—not just eat catering and hang out backstage. It was wrestling, it was a chance to get better and better, and it was a way to stay engaged even if they weren’t ready to give us top billing. We respected all the women ahead of us, but we knew we wanted to take their spots and someday be the top women in WWE—and be ready for it. We knew it would take a long time, but we also knew that we could get there. We always felt like if we did it, we could make a difference and break barriers. And did I mention that I’m also really competitive? I don’t like to lose.

  Brie

  It was certainly cutthroat backstage, because there was a scarcity of opportunities for the women. There just weren’t that many spots for us, and what were available were short (two minutes during TV events, max). It’s hard to blame the other ladies for eye-rolling at the newcomers, for resenting the competition. I think we were all a little angry, and everyone felt powerless at that time to change things. I think everyone just needed to put their hurt and dismay somewhere. It was easiest to put it on the other female wrestlers. Because Nicole and I are identical twins, we saw things a bit differently. After all, we had to share a womb, and knew there was a way to share the stage with other women as well. We knew firsthand that multiple women can have success simultaneously. Nobody gets ahead when you screw people over and make them fail, particularly in a sport like wrestling where it was on all of us to make each other look good out there.

  There were some hilarious times, too, particularly the late-night drives from town to town after the matches. We didn’t have smartphones for a long time, and so we would have to print out reams of directions from MapQuest (it’s still around, we’ve checked). And then we’d yell at each other. I might be scared to drive in snow, and scared of driving on big hills, but Nicole drives like she doesn’t care if she dies. She’s a nut behind the wheel.

  Honestly, I was just so happy to be there. I had a fun and amazing job where I got to express myself through my body, where I was paid to travel the world and entertain crowds. I mean, pinch me, people! I got to go to Paris and fight in front of an arena. Making money was nice, but if I’d needed to, I would have paid the company for the privilege to do my job. I couldn’t understand some of the misery that abounded backstage. People were so angry and so intent on screwing each other over. But it was clear that there were a million people who would have given their left nut to be in our positions. I had never been spoon-fed in life—I had always had to fight for it. I just don’t think they realized how bad it could be. Bear had made me grateful. My grandfather, Pop Pop, made me grateful. I was intent on having the best time, even when some of the other wrestlers wished us nothing but ill.

  Nicole

  While we all wanted as much TV time as possible, the non-televised live events were far more fun. For one, the matches were significantly longer because you weren’t capped by commercial breaks and run time. They were even less choreographed. During live events, you’re able to create as you go. It’s like any sport or craft, in that once you know what you’re doing, you’re able to perform at the next level. In wrestling, this means that you can get into the ring with your opponent and go with it—pushing each other to try new things. It’s kind of like dancing, actually, if you have chemistry with another wrestler, if you know how to move with each other and communicate in the ring. If you’re up against someone who is willing to work to make you look good by selling the bumps, then you can make some incredible matches, where the crowd feels every blow you take. It just takes practice. I still remember my first TV event. The referee, Scott Armstrong, just kept saying, “Breathe, baby girl, breathe.”

  Two of my favorite people to wrestle were Paige and Nattie—Paige because we took chances that other women wrestlers weren’t taking at the time, and Nattie because we could go rough on each other and there were never any hard feelings. Nattie was always great to us. She came from wrestling royalty and had certainly done her time in developmental, but she didn’t hold it against us. She was down in Florida at FCW with us, and we came up to the main roster at the same time. We taught her how to dress and look cute, but she taught us how to wrestle. Nattie has kept some of the costume pieces that we gave her from those early days because they remind her of our friendship, and also how people can be giving in an industry where many weren’t that helpful. We really tried to empower each other—Nattie knew us when we couldn’t wrestle at all, and she made us better. My most aggressive matches were always with her. I always loved wrestling Brie, too, because there was a trust between us that you can’t create with someone who isn’t your twin sister. I never had to worry that Brie’s timing would be off, or that she wouldn’t be there to catch my dives, or that we would go at each other too hard. When we had a storyline where I turned on her, I transformed into the meanest sister you can imagin
e. I got to be the sister on top, and I relished every moment.

  In my early days, I probably learned the most from Beth Phoenix. She taught me how to communicate throughout the whole match in a way that the audience can’t tell. When you’re wrestling and working really collaboratively, you communicate constantly—sometimes during holds, or through the refs, or with our bodies. You have to be mind-locked into your opponent, to understand what they’re going to do next and where you need to be to make it work for the audience—particularly if you haven’t been involved in long storylines with each other, where you learn the way they move intimately. I always preferred wrestling women who were roughly my height, because it’s just physically easier to get into it. But there is real artistry in wrestling against women who are taller, too. One tour, I was wrestling Tamina, our Samoan, who was the daughter of Jimmy “Superfly” Snuka, a famous wrestler. The goal was to make her look larger than life so that when I ultimately vanquished her, it would be like I had beat Goliath. I did the simplest stuff, but the crowd reacted like I had just won the World Cup. If you can be good at telling stories like that in the ring, you can be where The Rock is in his career. The physical moves make you, of course, but using your body to tell stories, to sell it to the crowd, to entertain them so they never want to watch anyone else, that’s the real art form. That’s what we were all trying to achieve.

  Brie

  During our time in WWE, it was incredible to watch as the matches transformed and became increasingly athletic and intense. In the early days, they would search for athletic models who they could turn into wrestlers. I guess you’d liken it to the Glow experience, where you’d go to an audition and either take to the sport or not. But over the years, they started bringing on women who were athletes first, and it changed the nature of the matches.

  Ultimately, other things started to change, too. Over the five years of our first WWE contract, the really bad apples started to get fired, one by one. The scene backstage became healthier, friendlier, and less intensely competitive. As we became veterans, we also vowed to change the culture, and to try to create more camaraderie among all the women. While the tendency is to still avoid going to the office for troubleshooting, people act like professionals in handling their backstage issues. Over the years, Nicole and I became leaders in the locker room. We worked hard to make it better, going out of our way to bring new wrestlers in under our wings. We had always taken care of each other, we had always been taught that you look out for other women. We might not be best friends outside of the building, but we were all sisters inside of it—and so it seemed only fair that we should make the whole scene a less oppressive experience. It was intimidating enough without the hazing, which seemed totally unnecessary. The women who came up either wanted to be there, worked hard, and showed respect—or they didn’t. But it wasn’t our job to enforce their behavior. People ultimately are who they are, and they will show you their true colors whether you force it out of them or not. We knew how to keep order, how to keep high-strung emotions under control. Ultimately, we just didn’t want anyone to feel how we had felt when we first got to the main stage. Thank God we’d had each other.

  Nicole

  This does not mean that we both behaved perfectly. In fact, stuff goes on backstage that’s worthy of its own promo, whether it makes it to a storyline or not. I had a pretty big beef with another female wrestler for a number of years, which culminated in a heated argument. I can’t say that I’m proud of it, but she had been telling stories about me backstage for years, and I finally had enough. I think her ex-boyfriend had a crush on me that triggered the whole thing, but her behavior became so ridiculous and hurtful that I decided to put a stop to it. I cornered her and gave her a three-minute speech about all the shit I had put up with in my life, culminating with: “I’m not the girl you fuck with.” Brie had to pull me off her before I ripped her hair off her head and slapped her hard.

  There weren’t that many times that we lost our cool, despite all the instances that we felt like we had been unfairly messed with. I’ll never forget one incident in the early days at FCW. In developmental, they put most of the logistics on the talent to execute. There was a lot of “Oh tell such-and-such wrestler this, or pass the word on to everyone.” WWE was down in Tampa for Monday Night Raw. When they came to town, the FCW crew would gather so the producers could pull together impromptu matches and see how we were all coming along. One of the girls was supposed to pass on the call time to us, and she told us that we needed to be there at showtime, 7 p.m. It turned out that the call time was 2 p.m., and she just wanted us to fail. We were yelled at and humiliated. That was pretty typical of the type of shenanigans that went on.

  We refused to let them get us down. Throughout our wrestling careers, it chafed people that we stayed positive and happy even when things were taken away from us. The other wrestlers couldn’t understand, for example, how we were capable of having so much fun at a hotel bar when we weren’t getting enough time on TV. But it seemed pretty obvious to us: We were being paid to wrestle, traveling the world, and life could have been much, much worse.

  Brie

  There had been a lot of women in WWE who don’t mind being a guy’s valet and more or less leaving it at that. But we wanted stories that were also about women—that allowed us to express our individuality. And WWE wouldn’t give those stories to us until we made them miss us by opting to leave when our contracts were up. When we came back, we came back with cameras. Finally the cameras were on women, telling women’s stories. Total Divas was amazing for us for many reasons, but I think the most important factor for me and Nicole was that we got to show the audience who we were separately for the first time. It was at that time that WWE started letting us dress differently—they stopped making us be so twin-y.

  When I could finally start dressing like me, I decided to integrate different types of plaid. From middle school up, I was a hippie little punk rocker who loved ska. I wanted to bring that out and show that side. So I wore flannel around my waist for a nineties grunge-y vibe. Meanwhile, Nicole’s inspiration for her outfit came from her time playing competitive soccer (her soccer jersey number was 02), which you could see in her jersey top, backwards snapback, knee-high socks, and Nikes. It seems like such a small thing, but it was so liberating to be able to start to dress like ourselves. It gave voice to the little girls inside us.

  As our storylines changed, our gear kept evolving, too. When Nicole was out with her broken neck and Bryan was out with a concussion, I got into a storyline against Charlotte Flair, and I started to wear their clothing. I brought in Bryan’s kickpads and Nicole’s shorts, just to inject the whole thing with a little more emotion, to heighten our matches with everything that I had at stake—because Nicole and Bryan couldn’t be there to fight, too. People knew I had their gear, and they would look for it out there in the ring. In retrospect, it might not have been the right move, since Nicole’s ass was significantly larger than mine. It wasn’t my best look. But surprising, delighting, and changing it up are key—in wrestling, you always have to evolve, whether that means a new look or becoming a heel.

  It’s funny, because looking back at our early days in the ring, we were so far from sexy, particularly compared to the other women at that time, who were essentially pinups. I don’t think we knew how to be sexy—we were PG, but I also think that it was a good thing. It made WWE a bit safer for younger girls who began to look to us as role models.

  Nicole

  We have a really big female fan base, which is pretty incredible. WWE used to be entirely dominated by guys in the audience, but Total Divas has really helped women connect. They’re going through the same stuff in their own lives as we are on the show, so they can relate on so many levels. Plus, they get to experience our lives as we live them, and there’s something rewarding about that. They get to see us as ourselves, completely unfiltered. We’ve come to develop a really deep emotional connection with our fan base.

  Brie and
I were never judgmental people—we couldn’t care less how the new girls who came into WWE got there. It was all about what they did when they arrived, and how they conducted themselves. As long as people were nice, respectful, and were working hard, we had no issue. It’s funny, because a lot of people couldn’t get over the fact that we didn’t come from a wrestling lineage. We didn’t spend years working in the independents, and our arrival in the ring wasn’t sparked by our childhood dreams. Were they really expecting us to say no to an opportunity, or walk away, because we didn’t have the same background as them? We never understood why the fact that we didn’t have the passion at five meant we weren’t entitled to have the passion for wrestling at twenty-one. That always blew our minds.

  During the transition from the women being called Divas, to being recognized as Superstars just like the men, the women were really united. I believe that’s why we made history—it took the whole locker room coming together. Obviously, the collective culture has shifted a lot, even just in the past few years, but one of the reasons that Brie and I decided to walk away from WWE was that we knew it had to change profoundly. We wanted equality, and we wanted respect. It took us leaving for everyone to realize that we were missed—that we actually brought a lot with us. It required coming back with cameras to really send the Divas Division—now Women’s Division—to the next level (more on that later). The reality show was major for a number of reasons, but I think it was most impactful because people everywhere got to see how strong the women wrestlers really are. All on our own.