Ariane Andrew Says She Respects AJ Lee But Wishes AJ Could’ve Been More Guiding In The Ring

Ariane Andrew opens up about working with AJ Lee.

Former WWE talent Ariane Andrew or better known by wrestling fans as “Cameron” of ‘The Funkadactyls’ was recently interviewed by DS Shin of ‘Ring The Belle’ and talked about a plethora of topics including her time as a part of NXT and does she regret any of the career decisions she made. As a part of the interview, Ariane’s top five moments from her wrestling career were shown to her and during the countdown a clip was shown from her WWE Divas Championship match from the 2014 ‘Elimination Chamber’ pay-per-view where she challenged the-then champion AJ Lee.

Ariane was a replacement in the match for Naomi who was out with an injury and she stated that seeing as how the match was last minute, she wishes that AJ Lee could’ve been more attentive to her in terms of being a guide in the ring. Ariane added that AJ told her that her stomach was hurting before the match but AJ ended up calling for a spot which required Ariane to land on AJ’s stomach which confused the former ‘Funkadactyl’ member.

“Because wrestling fans are gonna hate me out there because she did make a huge impact in the division but what I will say is, I respect her and her work ethic and what she’s doing now with her books and stuff like that, but I will say for someone who was new, I wish I could’ve had someone who was a little bit more guiding and not just kind of leave me out to the wolves and that was what it kind of was dealing with her.” Ariane explained. “It was major tough love. I don’t wanna throw her under the bus or anything. It was, me being so new I would’ve expected someone to, you know, not show up at the ring five minutes before the doors are about to open. Especially, you know when there’s a match this big. They didn’t even know if the match was going to happen — Ima spill some tea here, because she said she was sick. Her stomach was hurting, but then she told me to do my move where I dropped the leg on her stomach so I was like, ‘Girl, I’m Confucius’.” She continued, “I have to do my signature move but if your stomach is messed up and your ovaries and that’s the reason you weren’t gonna be able to do the match, why would you want me to drop my leg on your… I spilt a little tea there but again, wrestling community, I.W.C., I have love for the girl and I respected how far and the impact she made on the division. It’s just… you know. Some people can be a little difficult to work with sometimes.” She concluded.

Ariane Andrew’s former tag team partner Naomi went on to become a two-time SmackDown Live Women’s Champion and while mentioning the SmackDown Women’s Title, head over to Fightful’s “events” page to see the SmackDown Women’s Title match that is set for the Royal Rumble pay-per-view. 

If the quote in this article is used, please credit ‘Ring The Belle’ with an H/T to Fightful for the transcription.