Rebecca Quin (born 30 January 1987), better known by the ring name Becky Lynch, is an Irish professional wrestler. She has been signed to WWE since April 2013, where she performs on the Raw brand.
Quin began training as a professional wrestler in 2002. Initially working in Ireland, and occasionally teaming with her brother using the ring name Rebecca Knox, she soon began wrestling across Europe and North America on the independent circuit for various promotions. She most notably competed in Elite Canadian Championship Wrestling and became the inaugural SuperGirls Champion in 2005. In 2006, Quin had a severe head injury during a match which kept her away from wrestling for several years. She returned in 2012 and signed a contract with WWE in 2013, assigned to the developmental territory at NXT. Following her push to WWE's main roster, she became the inaugural SmackDown Women's Champion at Backlash 2016 and has held the title five times.
In 2018, Lynch transitioned to a more aggressive character starting at SummerSlam, when she attacked Charlotte Flair, presenting herself as an unfairly treated underdog and dubbing herself "The Man", resulting in a large increase in her popularity. In 2019, she won the Royal Rumble match, and in the main event of WrestleMania 35 won both the Raw Women's Championship and SmackDown Women's Championship, making her the first woman to hold both titles simultaneously and a four-time WWE women's champion. This was also the first time that a women's match was the main event of a WrestleMania, which was also subsequently the final one-night WrestleMania as it expanded to two nights the following year. She stands as one of only five women to have headlined WWE's marquee event.
After going on maternity leave in May 2020, she returned in August 2021 at SummerSlam to confront SmackDown Women's Champion Bianca Belair, whom she would defeat seconds later to become a four-time SmackDown Women's Champion. With her WWE Women's Tag Team Championship win in early 2023, she became WWE's Sixth Women's Triple Crown Champion, and then after winning the NXT Women's Championship in September 2023, she became WWE's sixth Women's Grand Slam Champion. In 2025, she won the WWE Women's Intercontinental Championship and went on to set the record for the longest reign at 163 days. In 2026, she became a record three-time WWE Women's Intercontinental Champion.
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Early life
Rebecca Quin was born in Limerick on 30 January 1987. Shortly after her birth, her family moved back to Dublin. Her parents separated when she was one year old, and her father moved out, but her mother invited him back to co-parent when Rebecca was four. When she was 11, her mother found a new partner, a pilot, and she and Rebecca moved to the coastal suburb of Bayside, to a house beside that of her partner, two years later. Rebecca in her autobiography goes into some detail on completing her growing years there.
She started watching professional wrestling from a young age with her brother, Richy, who later wrestled under the ring name Gonzo de Mondo. She was involved in horse riding, swimming, and basketball. However, she went through a difficult teenage period, with problems with schoolwork, even failing Physical education (P.E.) one year.
While at Mount Temple Comprehensive School she considered a career in acting, but was dissuaded by an aunt who was an actor. Quin attended University College Dublin to study philosophy, history and politics, but said she 'really hated it' and dropped out. She planned to return to college to study health and exercise studies. Prior to beginning to train as a wrestler, she stated that she had been 'going down a bad path' involving alcohol, but wrestling helped her give it up.
Professional wrestling career
Training and early career (2002–2005)
As a teenager, Quin heard that Fergal Devitt and Paul Tracey were opening a wrestling school in Ireland. She began training there along with her brother in June 2002. She made her professional wrestling debut five months later on 11 November, using the ring name Rebecca Knox. She teamed with her brother in mixed tag team matches during the early part of her career. She also trained at British professional wrestling promotion NWA UK Hammerlock.
Independent circuit (2005–2013)
Knox joined the Canadian promotion SuperGirls Wrestling, an all-female offshoot of Extreme Canadian Championship Wrestling (ECCW) in May 2005. Following her arrival at an ECCW show in Surrey, British Columbia, Knox feuded with Miss Chevius and defeated her, but lost to her in Port Coquitlam a month later. The following night, Knox teamed with Calum Macbeth to defeat Miss Chevius and Tony Tisoy in a mixed tag team match in Vancouver. On 24 June, Knox defeated Miss Chevius at an ECCW show in Surrey to become the inaugural SuperGirls Champion. Knox successfully defended the championship on several occasions before eventually losing it to Lisa Moretti in April 2006.
In late 2005, Knox participated in All Pro Wrestling (APW)'s third ChickFight tournament in Hayward, California; she defeated Morgan in the first round, but was eliminated by eventual winner Mariko Yoshida. Knox then won an eighteen-person battle royal at an event in Tokyo, Japan.
Knox began working for the all-female promotion Shimmer Women Athletes in early 2006. In her debut match for the promotion, she defeated Allison Danger, and established herself as a heel (villain) by faking an injury. Following that, she began feuding with Daizee Haze; Knox lost the first match between them, but won the rematch of two-out-of-three falls.
In June 2006, Knox defeated Sweet Saraya to win the vacated World Queens of Chaos Championship at an event in Chouilly, France. She held the championship for few months before dropping it to Saraya in September.
In September 2006, while wrestling in Germany, Knox sustained a legit head injury, following which she claimed to have been "suffering from extremely painful headaches, loud buzzing in her left ear and vision as a result," and was also diagnosed with possible damage to her eighth cranial nerve. A 60-minute Iron Woman match against Haze at Shimmer's Volume 7 taping was cancelled as a result.
Following her injury, Quin took a six-year hiatus, wrestling only on three occasions for Irish promotion Fight Factory Pro Wrestling (FFPW) in 2008, 2012 and 2013. She also reappeared in Shimmer in 2011, managing Saraya and Britani Knight for four shows.
WWE
In April 2013, Quin signed a two-year developmental deal with World Wrestling Entertainment (WWE) and moved to Florida to report to their developmental territory NXT. On 29 August, her new ring name was revealed as Becky Lynch.
Lynch made her televised in-ring debut on 26 June 2014 episode of NXT, defeating Summer Rae. The next week, Lynch teamed up with Bayley in a losing effort to the BFFs: Beautiful Fierce Females (NXT Women's Champion Charlotte and Sasha Banks) in a tag-team match. Lynch spent the next few months competing in non-title matches against Charlotte, losing three in a row. On 23 October episode of NXT, after being told to make herself relevant, Lynch aligned herself with Banks by attacking Bayley, turning heel. Known as Team B.A.E. (Best at Everything), the alliance started to disintegrate when Banks cost Lynch a match against Bayley in February 2015.
At NXT TakeOver: Rival, Lynch participated in a fatal four-way match for the NXT Women's Championship, which was won by Banks. In April, Lynch defeated Bayley and Charlotte in a triple threat match to earn a title match against Sasha, which she lost at NXT TakeOver: Unstoppable. During the match, she debuted a new look resembling Magic: The Gathering character Chandra Nalaar. The match received widespread critical acclaim, with praise going to both performers.
Lynch made her official main roster debut on 13 July episode of Raw, as a fan favourite, along with Charlotte and Sasha Banks, after Stephanie McMahon called for a "revolution" in the WWE Divas division. Lynch and Charlotte began allying with Paige, who was feuding with Team Bella (Alicia Fox and The Bella Twins), while Banks allied with Naomi and Tamina, leading to a brawl between the three teams. The trio of Paige, Lynch and Charlotte, originally dubbed Submission Sorority, was renamed to Team PCB (after the initials of each wrestler) when it was found out the original name was the same as an adult web page. Lynch made her in-ring debut on 20 July episode of Raw, teaming with Paige in a losing effort against Sasha Banks and Naomi. She earned her first singles victory on 28 July episode of Main Event over Brie Bella. The three teams ultimately faced off at SummerSlam in a three-team elimination match, in which Lynch pinned Brie Bella to win the match for PCB.
On 31 August episode of Raw, all members of PCB competed in the inaugural "Divas Beat the Clock Challenge", to determine the number one contender for the Divas Championship. Charlotte won the match and went on to claim the title from Nikki Bella at Night of Champions on 20 September. The following night on Raw, Paige turned on her partners during Charlotte's celebration, claiming that Charlotte was only there because of her father Ric Flair (since he was a former wrestler in WWE) and called Lynch the "least relevant" member of the group. Throughout October, Paige tried to reconcile with Lynch and Charlotte only to attack them, officially disbanding Team PCB in the process. On 2 November episode of Raw, Lynch was pinned by Paige in a fatal four-way to earn a title match for Charlotte's Divas Championship. The following week on Raw, Lynch gained revenge by defeating Paige.
Professional wrestling style and persona
Lynch uses both a Fujiwara armbar, called the "Dis-arm-her", and a Pumphandle side slam, called the "Manhandle Slam" as finishing maneuvers.
When Lynch was drafted to SmackDown following the 2016 WWE Draft, she used the nickname "The Irish Lass Kicker". From 2018 to 2020, she used the nickname "The Man". Upon her return and heel turn in 2021, she began to use the nickname "Big Time Becks". After turning face the following year, she reverted to her "The Man" nickname.
Impact and legacy
Since 2018, Becky Lynch has been cited to be one of the most popular and recognizable wrestlers of her generation in WWE. Lynch was the inaugural SmackDown Women's Champion in 2016 and at one point, held both the Raw and Smackdown Women's titles at the same time. At WrestleMania 35 in 2019, Lynch, Charlotte Flair, and Ronda Rousey became the first women to have headlined WWE's flagship annual event, while Lynch was the first to have won a WrestleMania main event match.
Lynch holds the record for most main event matches at pay-per-view events in a single year for a female wrestler (3 in 2019). That same year, she became the first woman to have been named Pro Wrestling Illustrated's Most Popular Wrestler of the Year. Lynch was also the first and only female performer in WWE history to have led the company in merchandise sales in 2019. Her Last Woman Standing match against Charlotte Flair at WWE Evolution was ranked No. 1 by WWE on "The Top 25 Matches of 2018" list. This was the first women's match to accomplish this feat.
Wrestler Toni Storm cited Lynch as her biggest inspiration and said that she is "taking the women's division to a completely different level." In 2019, wrestling commentator Jim Ross called Lynch "the most over talent in WWE". In 2024, fellow wrestler Nia Jax said that "Lynch is going to go down as one of the greatest in our business".
Lynch is the first WWE wrestler to have appeared on the cover of ESPN The Magazine in 2019. As of April 2020, she was the sixth highest-paid WWE wrestler and the highest-paid woman according to Forbes, with a salary of US$3.1 million. In 2022, Glazia Magazine named Lynch as one of the Top Female Game-Changers in the 21st Century.
Other media
Quin performed stunts for a 2013 episode of Vikings. She was written off WWE television for a few months in November 2017 to film The Marine 6: Close Quarters.
Becky Lynch is playable in ten WWE console games: WWE 2K17, WWE 2K18, WWE 2K19, WWE 2K20 (also one of the cover athletes), WWE 2K Battlegrounds, WWE 2K22, WWE 2K23, WWE 2K24, WWE 2K25 and WWE 2K26. Her entrance music is played after every goal scored on home ice by the American Hockey League's San Jose Barracuda.
On 1 November 2022, it was confirmed that Quin would make an appearance on the third-season premiere of Young Rock, playing Cyndi Lauper.
Lynch was a contestant on 15 November 2023 episode of Celebrity Jeopardy!, which drew a season high of 4.2 million viewers. On the episode, Lynch set a Jeopardy record by failing to correctly answer any of the standard sixty clues. Lynch managed to correctly answer two clues in the "Triple Jeopardy" round, which was added to the celebrity edition in 2022, as well as the "Final Jeopardy" clue.
On 26 March 2024, the autobiography Becky Lynch: The Man: Not Your Average Average Girl was released through Gallery Books. The book would become a New York Times Best Seller on 14 April 2024.
Other work
During her time away from wrestling, Quin worked as an actress and was cast in several plays in 2011 and 2012. She graduated with a degree in acting from the Dublin Institute of Technology, and has attended Columbia College Chicago and the Gaiety School of Acting. She also worked as a flight attendant with Aer Lingus for two and a half years.
Personal life
Quin began dating fellow professional wrestler Colby Lopez, better known as Seth Rollins, in January 2019. Their relationship was made public in April, after months of speculation. The couple got engaged in August 2019. Their daughter was born in December 2020. Quin and Lopez got married on 29 June 2021. Quin's father, Ken, died in March 2021.
On 18 March 2024, Quin announced she had become an American citizen.
Trademark dispute
In September 2019, Ric Flair threatened legal action against WWE and filed a trademark for the term "The Man", which was being used as a nickname by Lynch. The threats of legal action caused a rift between Ric Flair and his daughter Charlotte, who was Lynch's onscreen nemesis at the time. Lynch responded to the actions by asserting that she still liked and respected Ric Flair. Ric Flair transferred the rights to "The Man" nickname and gimmick to WWE in May 2020. The terms of the transfer were undisclosed. Ric Flair began feuding with Lynch in 2021, accusing her of using the term without his explicit permission, but their dispute was resolved when he apologized to her in January 2023.
