10 New Era Superstars who had to come up the hard way

3. Becky Lynch

The Irish Lass-kicker, for all her technical ability, needs to pull her act together.

Becky had almost given up wrestling as a career after suffering a head injury during a match in 2008. Reprising her role on the mat in 2013, she moved on to the main roster from NXT as part of the ambitious “Divas Revolution”. While her matches barely yielded any titles, Becky quickly became a fan favorite because of her captivating steampunk gimmick, superior wrestling skills, and ring temperament.

Born Rebecca Quinn, her first brush with pro wrestling came in 2002, through a school opened by Fergal Devitt (Finn Balor) and Paul Tracey in Ireland . She eventually made her debut some months later as a mixed tag team competitor with her brother. Though success was limited, Rebecca Knox, as she was known, kept wrestling throughout Europe in promotions such as NWA UK Hammerlock, Fighting Spirit Federation, and One Pro Wrestling. Moving to the United States in 2005, she joined SuperGirls Wrestling where she eventually became the inaugural SuperGirls Champion.

During the same year, she won an 18-person battle royal in the International Women’s Grand Prix held in Japan, along with a slew of other tag team matches. This was followed by a stint at Shimmer Women Athletes, most memorably her acclaimed match with Daizee Haze following as feud. However, her career abruptly ended due to a sustained injury and she would stay out of the ring till 2011 when she returned to Shimmer in a non-performing capacity.

Becky’s NXT debut came at a live event in November. Her run in the WWE developmental was lukewarm at best and she even turned heel in order to achieve depth in her character. Despite being one of its consistent performers, Becky won little. Her star-making moment came during NXT Takeover: Unstoppable where she put up a brilliant match against Sasha Banks. This was also when she underwent an image revamp and debuted her steam punk look.

However, her role in the main roster consisted of mostly defeats and dull promos where she would invoke stories of struggle from her past. Becky’s experience inside a ring is unmatched but capitalizing upon it for the sake of selling a character is bound to go awry.