IRISH wrestling superstar Becky Lynch has revealed she made videos for a fetish website and stripped off in a lingerie shoot for a Japanese porn mag before hitting the big time.
The athlete — real name Rebecca Quin — admitted she was strapped for cash earlier in her career before becoming a famous WWE figure.
Becky, nicknamed The Man, is now rich beyond her wildest dreams and a huge star after a decade-long stint among the sport’s elite, winning major honours along the way.
But early in her career she took on less glamorous jobs to make ends meet after moving to America in 2005 when she was in a relationship with fellow Bray-born grappler Fergal Devitt, whose ring name is Finn Bálor.
She said: “After spending a week in Boston with Fergal’s family, we flew down to Florida to meet up with wrestler Lexie Fyfe, whom I had met at a wrestling show a year or so ago.
“She ran what were called customs. A client with, say, a certain proclivity would message Lexie with a request for a specific type of match — for example, a barefoot match or working a specific type of hold, for example, the midsection, and they would pay a hefty fee for the service.
“Lexie would then find wrestlers to facilitate said request, tape it and send it on to the consumer. Odd, yes, but a quick way to make a buck for a struggling wrestler.
“My naivety at the time allowed me to believe that it was an easy way to get paid to do what I loved and there was nothing perverse about it. In reality, it was a fetish site.
I justified, ‘All the WWE girls do it, it’s just part of the job’ but I hated it
“And hey, man, whatever floats your boat and doesn’t sink mine is A-OK with me. But this was definitely not what I set out to do — and I would wager this was the kind of stuff my mother would dread when the concept of professional wrestler was brought her way.
“For me, I got to wrestle, it didn’t matter the means. Sure, it was barefoot, with holds being applied to my belly, in a warehouse with no fans, but I was substantially richer leaving than when I got there, allowing me to do the thing I loved even longer.
“Looking back now, I shudder, however, it would be rare to find a struggling independent wrestler who hasn’t done their fair share of customs.”
Becky, who was born in Limerick before moving to Dublin as a baby, revealed in her new autobiography The Man that she also wore sexy underwear for photoshoots to earn dosh after she and Fergal broke up.
She said: “Like every heartbroken teenage girl, I set my sights on getting a better body. As if that would heal the pain and make him want me back.
“I was offered to do custom matches in North Carolina by a company called Ring Angels, along with a lingerie photo shoot for $150, which sounded like a small fortune to me.
“It was, of course, completely against anything I had set out to do. I wanted to prove that I should be looked at for my technical ability, and had never wanted to sexualise myself lest that take away from my credibility as a wrestler.
“I did it anyway. In my confusion, my heartbreak, my wanting to make it to the top and feel good about myself, I justified, ‘All the WWE girls do it, it’s just part of the job’ but I hated it. I hated every second of it.
“Trying to fit into the mould that I had so vehemently set out to break felt like I was selling my soul for $150. I still cringe every time I see those photos — this fluffy, awkward 19-year-old trying to look sexy while so obviously feeling uncomfortable.
“It can be so confusing being a woman in wrestling. Doubly so when you’re raised Catholic. You see what the women on TV are doing and think that’s how to get ahead, but you also don’t want it to come with the objectification, so you wonder if you should shun your femininity completely.
“It’s a fine disorientating balance to be walked carefully when it should be easy. Just be you and do what you love well. But instead of realising that I didn’t need to sell myself as a hot little sex kitten, I put more emphasis on my body. As if that were the only thing that could lead me to greatness.”
Becky, 37, confessed that she followed this up with similar raunchy pictures in Japan, which has a huge wrestling fanbase, after signing up with a talent agency there.
She said: “The first day, they had arranged a photo shoot — another lingerie shoot. Having decided I wanted to make it to the big leagues, I needed to figure out this sex appeal thing and in turn, would continue to do what I said I wouldn’t.
“And I worked hard for my body, why wouldn’t I show it off? I’m in better shape than the last time, I told myself. As a side note, I believe there is nothing wrong with showing off your body and feeling the power of your own femininity and sexuality.
“However, I also knew that if I wanted to be respected as an athlete and a wrestler I had to have more than sex appeal.
“In fact, I felt like I needed to reject it completely. Not that it mattered, because in my confusion I went against it all anyway.
“The people at the shoot were lovely, and this shoot was much more professional and classier than the last one. However, the magazines they ended up in? Not so much.
“I was horrified, but also too meek to stand up and say anything to the agency. ‘Very popular magazine’, they said. Yeah, I can see why — it was the top porno magazine in Japan, and as a result of my very Catholic upbringing and my intentions on how I wanted to be portrayed in general, I was mortified.”
In her memoir, Becky tells of her past as an unruly teen growing up in Bayside in north Dublin, where she got mixed up with booze and drugs and having parties while her air hostess mum was away for work.
She said: “Mum’s new house was a fixer-upper verging on dilapidated.
“The stress I was putting my mum under was taking its toll on her. She began wasting away to nothing, unable to eat, and gagging at the dinner table when she tried.
“She only ever wanted to be a good mother, raise good children, and live a good life. But somehow, no matter how many masses she attended, things weren’t working out that way for her.
“And unfortunately, for the next few years, I was only going to get worse.
“What’s more, the new neighbourhood was a maze of dodgy side alleys and nettle-filled fields, with a random ancient graveyard smack-dab in the middle of it — perfect for delinquent teens, of which there happened to be an abundance, which facilitated my new-found hobbies of street drinking and pot smoking that I had picked up to cope with all of these 13-year-old emotions.
"I had acquired a group of friends. We all had the same love of getting stoned and hanging around the mean streets of Bayside. Everyone was slightly older than I was, so it made purchasing alcohol even easier.
“With my mum being gone on overnights on weekends, our place became the party house. Most weekends were fairly tame, but occasionally the wrong person would invite a group of wrong people.
“Then my brother and I had to prevent fights breaking out and stop people setting fire to our furniture.
“My mum could smell the stench of smoke when she walked into the house, jet-lagged and exhausted from working through the night.”
Elsewhere in her book, Becky tells how she previously suffered an eating disorder as she battled to stay ripped as a bodybuilder and said doing an Irish jig on telly after her TV debut felt embarrassing afterwards.
She added: “When we were done and the awfulness was over, oblivious to the shame I had brought upon myself, my family, my country, the company, and humankind in general, I was beside myself with happiness.
“I had done it! I had wrestled on TV. I had made it!”
Her career really took off after she became the inaugural SmackDown Women’s Champion at Backlash 2016 and she has become one of WWE’s highest paid wrestlers and the most successful Irish import since Dubliner Sheamus, real name Stephen Farrelly.
Becky married fellow professional wrestler Colby Lopez, better known as Seth Rollins, in 2021. They have a three-year-old daughter and last month Becky announced she had become a US citizen.
In her book, she says that “every wrestling dream I had ever had was coming true” as she kept breaking records and making milestones as a woman in the sport.
She adds: “I was put on the cover of the WWE video game — the first time ever for a woman. I was on the cover of magazines, even becoming the first wrestler on the cover of ESPN The Magazine.
“I got a book deal. I became the longest-running Raw women’s champion in history. I bought my first house. I was getting to travel the world and work side by side with my best friend and now husband, and paid to do it.”
