AJ Lee made her long-awaited return to WWE television on the September 5 episode of SmackDown, marking her first appearance with the company in more than ten years.

Her comeback was tied directly to the ongoing feud between her husband CM Punk and Seth Rollins, with Rollins’ wife Becky Lynch also recently entering the storyline.

Speaking on ESPN, Punk reflected on AJ’s return and the significance of it happening in their hometown. “It’s not often that I say nights that happen in this business are perfect, but for me it was. You’d have to ask her, her opinion on it. For me, it was perfect. It needed to happen in Chicago. Luckily, it was right on the calendar; there it was. Perfect. I do not say that often.”

When asked if he ever thought AJ would return, Punk admitted he believed it was unlikely. “I think it would have been a hard no. I never bothered her about it. I never asked her. We never watched wrestling, we didn’t talk about it. The ball was always going to be in her court, it just needed to be a conversation. Timing was super important. Timing, in this business, is everything. She’s so busy with everything else, that’s one of the bigger reasons why I just assumed, ‘Ten years, it’s long gone,’ and she has so many irons in so many different fires with production companies, so many different scripts, re-writes, doing her own acting. I just figured she was too busy and it would never happen. I guess timing is everything.”

Punk explained how the idea of AJ’s return came about. “One day she asked me, ‘I’m so busy doing stuff, but I have this time coming up. If I were to come back, what would you do? Talk to me. Book it.’ That’s what I do. My brain never shuts off and I said, ‘I would do this, this, and this.’ ‘That’d be fun. That sounds cool.’ The fact that she didn’t say no right away and wasn’t turned off by it, there was a hint of a spark.”

AJ will now join Punk to face Rollins and Lynch in a blockbuster mixed tag team match at WWE Wrestlepalooza.

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