Wrestling was frequently on the television in Lyra Valkyria’s home growing up in Clarehall in Dublin. Her brother was watching it one afternoon after school when fellow Irishwoman Becky Lynch, known as The Man, entered the ring. At that moment, aged 17, the trajectory of her whole life changed.
“Never in my life did I dream that it could be me in the ring until I saw Becky Lynch, the girl from Dublin, Ireland, walk out on NXT doing an Irish dance. And that for me just set the ball rolling,” she says.
Born Aoife Cusack, the 27-year-old with her statement jet black locks has risen to global acclaim since signing with World Wrestling Entertainment (WWE) in 2020.
Wrestling, Valkyria says, “saved” her at a time when she was feeling really lost. She joined a small wrestling gym in Bray, Co Wicklow soon after witnessing Lynch on the small screen. She had “no idea” what to expect or how things worked behind the scenes, and only knew what she had seen on TV. But from that first moment, she knew it was something she was supposed to do.
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“I was doing my exams. There’s a lot of pressure to figure out at that age what you’re going to do in the next few years, and I was kind of crumbling under that pressure, to be honest,” Valkyria says over Zoom from Orlando, Florida where she lives for work; she appears weekly as part of the globally-televised WWE NXT brand live every Tuesday night, shown in Ireland on Virgin Media Two on Saturday mornings.
“It [the gym] was just a bunch of lads like myself, it was just the thing they do outside school, the thing that keeps them going. I found a lot of people who were quite like me. I met friends for life.”
Though she knew she loved wrestling, she continued to third level to study journalism and Irish in Dublin City University. It was three years of spinning many plates: lectures, assignments, a part-time job, as well as regular training and arduous commutes to the Bray gym.
After graduating, a lot of things happened very quickly, she says. She went wrestling full-time, and that leap of faith has paid off – in October she was crowned NXT Women’s Champion.
The win was made even sweeter by the fact she was up against the very woman who inspired her first foray into wrestling. Lynch – whose real name is Rebecca Quin – is a big name in the sector. In 2019, she took part in the first female headline event in the 35-year history of WrestleMania. This, Valkyria says, makes her the perfect person to look up to as a young, female wrestler.
“You don’t understand how incredible it is to have that role model to aspire to from Dublin. Becky was part of the first women’s main event. And the fact that she was just down the road from me just made it seem that much more attainable,” Valkyria says.
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“But of course because she was in NXT almost 10 years ago now, I just never thought that it would be possible that in 2023 that she would hold the one championship that I always aspired to get. So it really was just like the stars and planets all aligned and everything happened perfectly.”
Valkyria has a confidence about her when she is talking; her passion for her career is undeniable. She is, in some ways, unsurprised at the position she has reached, due to how right being in the ring feels for her.
“I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t in this to make it to the top. My goal would be to main-event WrestleMania just like Becky did. No matter how long it takes, no matter what I have to do, that’s always going to be the goal.”
That objective is what keeps her motivated during difficult times, and there have been challenges, she says. She tore her anterior cruciate ligament two years ago, which took a year out of her career.
“That was a really hard time in my life, because I had never had surgery, I’d never been out for an extended period of time. I didn’t know how tough injuries can be, not just physically but mentally. I really had to overcome a mental battle.”
The prominence of female wrestlers has changed in the past decade. The WWE has sought to modernise since its rebrand seven years ago, when the “Divas” moniker for women wrestlers was binned along with the more misogynistic storylines, and women’s matches were featured more prominently in WWE’s programming. “The women, who were once seen as jokes, sex symbols and Glamazons, are now a bona-fide part of the company,” wrote sports columnist Joanne O’Riordan in this newspaper in 2019, after Lynch headlined WrestleMania.
This is something Valkyria has seen first hand through her own time as a professional wrestler.
“I think the women are not only showcased so well, but a lot of the time we’re one of the biggest draws on the show,” she says. “I think it’s an incredible time to be a woman in professional wrestling; it’s the best time there has ever been. Because we’re getting recognition, we’re getting time, we’re getting huge opportunities.”
Opportunities are hard to come by, but Valkyria believes sometimes you create your own by trying new things. If she hadn’t began to wrestle after watching Lynch on TV, she would not be where she is today.
“That changed my whole life, that one day I decided to try something new. All it took was trying it once. If I could encourage anyone to do the same, it would be the one thing I would love to be able to do.”
