Lita Discusses Why She Turned Down Joining AEW

During an interview with Esquire Middle East, Lita discussed her WWE return and why she turned down All Elite Wrestling.

Check out the highlights below:

On why returning now was the right time:

“It really mirrors everything about my career. From the day I debuted, I wasn’t supposed to debut, like there was no plan in place. Christian was hurt, or doing something else. They were like, throw those two kids out there. We’re like, great, cool, here we go! Then when I walked out of the Royal Rumble, they Johnny Ace followed me out and said, ‘hey, what do you think about challenging Becky?’ It just kind of fell in place, there wasn’t like this long prep for it. There wasn’t this big grandiose plan that was set up for the perfect timing. It was just like, ‘yeah, you want to do this? It’s in a couple weeks’. There was no time to overthink it. That’s how I work best, not overthinking things, going with my gut. I felt excited when I got the question posed to me. I didn’t think about everything that could possibly go wrong. I just focus on the opportunity that’s here.”

On if she regrets not coming back before:

“I’ve never thought about that because I enjoy my life.I am surprised at how natural it all feels and how happy and it’s also combined with passion, going from being in a closed off section of the world and then emerging out into the world, the world that I’ve been a part of for so much of my adult life, the timing of that is also very serendipitous for me.”

On turning down AEW:

“AEW is doing exciting stuff. It’s brought new life in the industry. Any time there’s competition, it’s good. It revives the industry. When they reached out to me, I did consider it. I said, we can talk, I’m interested, you guys are doing some interesting stuff. But ultimately, upon talking to them, it just made me say to myself, ‘but I have all of these things already!’ I have those things with my home that I’ve known for 20 years, with the people that I’ve worked with for 20 years. Basically, I gave them my blessing. I said, I will watch you and I support you. And I want you guys to do great, but this just doesn’t feel like the right fit for me right now.”

On her conversations with Becky Lynch:

“I told her I saw something in her when she first got up there to the main roster, and it was so much bigger than NXT is or the independents, There’s a million people that have different opinions, and they’re all giving you different advice, which really gets in your head because you’re like, either I offend this legend, or this person, or this producer. How do I do that? I felt like my role with her was to have you go with your gut 100% of the time, don’t let creep in. When I saw her, when I saw ‘The Man’ catch fire, I was the biggest cheerleader. I was like, this is who I saw. This is who I saw that day I met you, this is where you need to be. Then I was thinking like, I was able to do in my generation to be like this. This is just propelling her. I was the first rung and she’s like the next eight rungs on that ladder. It gave me so much joy to see somebody just explode and be that top superstar.”

Lita will challenge Becky Lynch for the RAW Women’s Championship at WWE Elimination Chamber on February 19 in Saudi Arabia.