AJ Lee revealed in an interview with Esquire two reasons as to why WWE selected her as the new General Manager of Raw. One of the reasons was because WWE wanted the visual of “the tiniest person having the most power” and the other was their constant search for something surprising and unpredictable.

“It came completely out of left field. I had no idea that they were looking for a general manager for a really long time. They felt that it would be really surprising and unpredictable. So, you know, I book matches. I’m the boss of all the guys. It’s fun because a lot of them have wronged me.”

AJ also mentioned how she stuck to her roots as a tomboy character and did not turn into a typical WWE Diva, which she felt WWE wanted her to be early on.

“I heard a million times to clean up, but not be too much of a tomboy. I heard, ‘This is what you have to convert to, this is the formula,’ A.J. said. “And you know, it’s wrong. There was something in me where I knew that people wanted someone that they could relate to. I was able to show that I was goofy and dorky, and right away, people embraced that. The company noticed and they were like, ‘Let’s just go with that.’”