Becky Lynch On Competing in an Empty Arena, Being Champion For a Year

Becky Lynch spoke with Sporting News for a new interview promoting her match with Shayna Baszler at WrestleMania 36. Highlights are below:

On keeping herself upbeat amidst the pandemic: “I am privileged enough that I still get to go, whether there are crowds or not, go out there and perform for people at home watching and hopefully give them a little bit of a break. And also, really just things that you don’t really get the time to do a lot of the time, like catching up on movies and documentaries and changing your workouts a little bit. It makes you a little bit more creative. And then cooking. I love cooking and I’m never at home to cook.”

On performing under the current circumstances: “It’s very different, right? It’s all about adaption and I wouldn’t be where I am in my career if I wasn’t about to adapt to that and know when to shift when the time is right. So I think that you just have to go into a different mode, you have to realize that you’re not going to get the same feedback. It feels so good when we have the crowd responding. But to know that, OK, you’re not going to get that feedback. You have to tell them a story. The people that are watching at home, the millions of people that are watching at home, you have to tell them a story. You have to give them a reason to care. You have to give them a reason to think about something else for a little bit whether it’s an hour or three hours or whatever it is. Then you just figure out how can I do this the best and that’s all this ever is for me: how can I do this the best.”

On if she has to think about it more without a crowd to feed off of: “Yeah, it is. That is the thing — I’ve always been somebody who fed off that energy and connected to the crowd. Now, they’re just not there to let you know that you’re connected to them. It really is just remembering that there are millions of people watching at home and that you are reaching them but now in a different way. So now, little details are even more important than they ever were.”

On the empty arena taking her back to the early days of her career: “Oh, yeah. I remember wrestling in front of seven people, if even. And with Irish people, I don’t know if you’ve noticed, but they’re not really shy, right? They’re usually quick-witted with comebacks from things where you can hear all of them when they’re in the crowd. Sometimes just a few people is worse than nobody. I’ve already been through, to wrestling in front of next to nobody. WrestleMania will be the first time that I wrestle in front of nobody in terms of a WWE audience. I’ll just be bringing that energy, bringing that intensity. And I don’t want to lose my championship. I want to go on over here. I want to be over here being a champion. I want to retire with this thing.”

On coming up on a year as Raw Women’s Champion: “Yeah. I’ve had a little time to think about it. It’s pretty crazy and it brings its own challenges. And because of that, because I’ve had it for a year, I’ve been nonstop going for a year, over a year. So, it really was a case of constantly going and constantly being on the go and now and I’ve finally gotten the chance to reflect on the past year and reflect on what I want for the future, the next year, which is pretty cool.”

On her impression of Shayna Baszler heading into WrestleMania: “She’s a technician. She’s as good as anybody I’ve ever seen so it can be tricky trying to lock on that armbar. But, you know, I’m always looking for alternative ways. She’s powerful. She’s strong. She’s intense, she’s dominant like we saw at Elimination Chamber. She’s unlike anybody I’ve faced in the last year.”