Nikki Bella Discusses Becky Lynch Before The Man, Respect For Divas Era Of WWE

“I did see potential, but I'll admit it was definitely overshadowed. You couldn't help but see what Charlotte Flair was doing, and then Sasha Banks. They were such standouts. Sasha was coming off of that iconic match in NXT with Bayley, so your eyes were really on her. And then Charlotte Flair came in… and there was a lot of focus on her for the Divas Title.”

Nikki Bella told The Takedown on SI that Lynch was certainly deserving of being brought to the main roster alongside Charlotte and Sasha, now wrestling as Mercedes Moné in AEW, and she is incredibly impressed to see how far she's come in her career.

“Don't tell her this, but I think she's one of the greatest superstars ever," Bella said. Oops... Let's just hope Becky doesn't read this. "When some of us are overshadowed and held back, it gives us a certain kind of fire to prove ourselves... It's almost like you need that story to give you a certain drive and motivation, because when you're already proven out of the gate, where do you go from there?”

Bella and Lynch were both part of the SmackDown Live six, the collection of talent who made up the heart of the women's roster in 2016, and Nikki remembered seeing hunger, desire and a willingness to learn in The Man, long before she would become The Man.

Becky found some early success after moving to the Blue Brand when she became the inaugural SmackDown Women's Champion, but she was missing that trademark swagger and confidence we see from her today, and slid way down the card before ascending to the top in the summer of 2018.

"We all try to find that character that takes us to the next level, and we kind of have to go through a few things," Bella said. "I didn't start as Fearless Nikki. She came over time and the minute I became her, that's what took me to the next level. Same with The Man. When Becky Lynch finally became The Man, that just took off.”

Heading into Clash in Paris Sunday afternoon, it's Nikki Bella who is now looking to discover herself all over again, while also hoping to earn some respect for her era of women's wrestling.

WWE Divas Era suffered from lack of opportunity

Conversations and debates over the greatest of all time are fairly common practice, across all professions, not just the squared circle. But when they happen within the wrestling community, women from Nikki Bella's era tend to suffer from a lack of serious consideration.

Even when The Takedown on SI compiled our own list of the top female Superstars in WWE history, women such as Mickie James, Beth Phoenix, AJ Lee and The Bella Twins found themselves in the honorable mention section, largely because it was very difficult to measure their accomplishments against modern-era stars. 

The Women's Royal Rumble did not exist, neither did Money in the Bank or the Women's Intercontinental Championship that Nikki will be competing for Sunday afternoon. Getting more than a few minutes on the WrestleMania card was far from a guarantee, let alone having a shot to main event the show.

“When you look at our era and you truly dissect it, we had incredible female athletes. And if we were given those opportunities, let me tell you, all those women would've knocked it out of the ballpark.”

The careers of Michelle McCool, Melina, Eve Torres, Alicia Fox, in addition to the women previously mentioned, were hindered in some way by this stigma that they were models turned professional wrestler. Even though many of them came into WWE with an athletic background.

It was the WWE creative team's decision at the time to portray them as 'Divas' on television. When the cameras were off, however, it was an entirely different story.

"When you go back and look at our FCW tapes, what us women were doing was incredible. We just didn't have TV. We were doing it at bars and church parking lots and flea markets, but I couldn't even imagine if we had the company behind us."

Nikki is a firm believer that you can have all the talent in the world, but you need the backing of the machine in order to reach your full potential.

The Divas' lack of recognition, still to this day, has more to do with the company's overall view of female wrestlers during that era than it does the women who made up the roster.

"We needed someone like Triple H earlier to step in for women. We needed that voice, but we didn't have that voice yet. The generation behind us was so lucky because Triple H ended up [stepping into the] office. He used that voice, but that was past our era."

Nikki Bella is back in WWE for an extended run, much like Trish Stratus during the summer of 2023, and she hopes that other women from the Divas Era will get that same opportunity in the near future.