AJ Lee’s talent was just about apparent to anyone who watched her even once in the ring, and many are rather sad that her run in WWE ended so early. If her new book is to be believed, though, you can’t really blame her for wanting to leave the company.
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AJ Lee, who’s real name is AJ Brooks, recently published her book “Crazy is my Superpower“. The book details Brook’s journey up the ranks of pro wrestling and her dealings with the industry. As you can imagine, pro wrestling doesn’t have the most sparkling reputation in how it treats women or any minority for that matter, and Brooks recalls several events that happened to her throughout her journey.
One in particular though came up in a recent Amazon review of the book by Harleen_Lee, who shared her review on Twitter as well. Note that last part of the paragraph (via Danny on Twitter).
— Danny (@dajosc11) February 24, 2017
“This is not a happy happy joy joy book. Yes, you will laugh a lot due to AJ’s turn of phrase or some fantastically funny stories, but there is a real darkness and sadness to the first 20 or so years of Mendez-Brooks’ life and you can’t help but feeling bad for her. The important thing is that she never gave up, was determined to become a pro wrestler and overcame her size, massive amounts of sexism and misogyny from within the business and the fact a certain Director of Talent Relations (who is never named in the book but I have named their brother in this review.) directly told her that she was considered unf**kable by the fans and higher-ups. Ouch.”
That “director of talent” is most likely John Laurinaitis. It’s not exactly a leap after previous comments by Laurinaitis in regards to female wrestlers. As the Wrestling Observer noted back in 2010, he had similar comments for Sexy Star, who has gone on to superstardom over at Lucha Underground. Here’s what he said after her tryout.
“As for Sexy Star, they thought her work was terrible, her English was terrible and they also thought she was overweight and wasn’t pretty enough without the mask. John Laurinaitis told the officials at FCW that when it comes to hiring women, the standard is if they aren’t pretty enough to be in Playboy, then the company wouldn’t want them.”
Again, she never mentions him by name, so it could always be someone else she is referring to. Regardless, this kind of mentality has no business in the WWE or anywhere else for that matter, and things in the WWE seem to be moving in a more forward direction these days.
You can read her full review here.
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