10 Things WWE Wants You To Forget About AJ Lee
7. Her Heat With The Bella Twins
When real beef infiltrates the fake world of professional wrestling, the results are rarely pretty, and the legitimate bad blood between Nikki Bella and AJ Lee made it to the airwaves a few years back.
Rumours of heat surfaced in August 2013, when Lee shot down the Bellas (and the rest of the Total Divas cast) in a scathing Raw promo. Scripted or otherwise, it sowed the first seeds of dissent, and Nikki clapped back the following year, eviscerating the "pathetic little girl from New Jersey" in a SmackDown promo that was ultimately edited out of the broadcast.
It continued a few months later. Among other things, AJ would chastise the twins for only returning to WWE for the reality show, using their cache with management to prevent others being pushed (herself included), and Nikki for her relationship with John Cena.
Nikki later accused AJ of turning the audience against her, but it's easy to see why they clashed in the first place. Perception was that while the Bellas had been hired for superficial reasons, AJ was a grafter, and the antithesis of Total Divas' glitz. Still, Nikki had the last laugh, breaking Lee's record 295-day Divas Title reign soon after he rival's retirement.