The professional wrestling locker room is a fascinating place if for no other reason than the social experiment it entails. Wrestlers are professional athletes—skilled, and more often than not athletic and muscular, entailing a rigorous workout regimen and diet, all to achieve their dreams of performing at the highest levels the business allows for in WWE. Along the way, friendships are in inevitability for sheer time spent together on the road and the level of trust that goes into stepping in the ring and putting their lives and wellbeing in each other’s hands.

For all of this camaraderie, however, wrestling is also a competitive medium. The outcomes of matches and storylines is predetermined, but who gets over with the fans, and who garners opportunities from management are another matter as performers aim to work their way into coveted spots with the brightest spotlights and the most money attached to them. Moreover, there are jealousies, resentments, and times when personalities simply do not jive.

Female WWE Superstars are little different from their male counterparts in these regards. Many of them form close friendships based of their common experiences and constant exposure to one another. Meanwhile, there those women who rub one another the wrong way for any number of personal or professional reasons. To make it at the level of a WWE performer, there’s usually some degree of professionalism that can be attributed to a talent, and so they may not identify their enemies outright. Nonetheless insiders can identify those pairs that might play nice, but don’t like one another in reality.

This article looks at eight pairs of real life friends from WWE, and eight frenemies.

16 Friends: Alexa Bliss And Nia Jax

While The Four Horsewomen of NXT—Charlotte Flair, Sasha Banks, Becky Lynch, and Bayley were generally the most featured women from their era in developmental, and the most talked about on their way up to the main roster, there were other women who’d rise to the main roster from that same era. There was Carmella who would win the first women’s Money in the Bank contract on the main roster, and Dana Brooke who has become a main roster mainstay in her right. Plus, there’s Alexa Bliss and Nia Jax.

Bliss and Jax played friends for some time on WWE television, with Jax often the muscle behind Bliss’s arrogant heel act.

It turns out that the odd couple of the diminutive Bliss who grew up a wrestling fan, and heavyweight Jax who comes from the Anoi’a wrestling family is true to life as the two struck up a real friendship as the less appreciated talents in developmental, who got called up in a similar time frame. The friends got the ultimate honor in getting cast as kayfabe enemies to work a featured storyline, culminating in a one on one match between them for the Raw Women’s Championship at WrestleMania 34, then at Backlash.

15 Frenemies: Mickie James And Nikki Bella

Mickie James and Nikki Bella haven’t had that much overlap in the WWE locker room. After all, James was a little ahead of Bella’s time with the company, debuting in 2005 while WWE wouldn’t introduce the Bellas to their audience until two years later. They wrestlers wouldn’t always be on the same brand, and Nikki and her sister Brie didn’t become truly featured players until after James had left the company. While James did come back in 2016, the Bellas were on the cusp of transitioning to part time status by that point.

Although James and Nikki haven’t necessarily spent all that much time together, they have a shared characteristic that transcends the wrestling business. Each were romantically linked to John Cena.

To take matters a step further, James was previously involved in a secretive relationship back in her first stint with the company. When Cena called off their situation, James reportedly didn’t take it well, leading WWE to move her off of Cena’s brand to make things less awkward.

Meanwhile, Cena would end up falling in love with Nikki after his divorce, and ultimately proposed to her. Though Nikki and Cena ended up calling off their wedding, Nikki and James nonetheless still have the unavoidable tension that exists between any two people who had the same partner, with the added issue of jealousy, because Cena was clearly more committed to Nikki than he ever was to James.

14 Friends: Peyton Royce And Billie Kay

Peyton Royce and Billie Kay’s pro wrestling destinies have been intertwined to a fascinating extent. As Kay has commented in interviews, the two actually went to the same high school just three years apart from one another. They learned of their mutual fandom when they both showed up for a wrestling event, and quickly became a competitive over who was the bigger fan.

More than super fans, though, both Royce and Kay would pursue their dreams of actually becoming wrestlers and wind up earning WWE developmental deals on the same day.

As a pair of beautiful women from Australia, it’s not altogether shocking WWE would choose to pair them up as a team.

All of the commonalities in Royce and Kay’s life journeys would be enough to make them friends, but being situated as partners, and thus having their fates in NXT so intertwined bonded them much more closely. This spring, they made the ultimate step in debuting on the main roster as The Iconics, carrying on their brash heel shtick and immediately costing Charlotte Flair her SmackDown Women’s Championship. First appearing in this manner set up Royce and Kay to be a big deal in the women’s division from the start, and the longer they’re together in this role, the close they’ll surely become as personal friends.

13 Frenemies: Paige And Lana

At first blush, Paige and Lana wouldn’t seem to have all that much in common. Paige was born into a wrestling family, and got to working professionally in the ring from her teenage years. Lana got a later start and, from the beginning wasn’t actually a wrestler so much as a valet for her real life partner Rusev. Nonetheless, Paige and Lana found themselves working in NXT at the same time, only to wind up debuting on the main roster not too far removed from one another.

The tensions between these two showed up on social media, when Lana accused Paige of demeaning her during their time together in developmental. Paige went on the offensive, claiming it was all lies and poking fun at Lana on her own Twitter account. All of this went down without any preexisting storyline between the two, and they haven’t gone on to meaningfully engage on screen since, leading most fans to believe the exchange was not a part of any WWE storyline, but rather a legitimate shoot.

While there haven’t been any further reports of the two having disputes, and they haven’t taken their issue to social media since, neither have their been any signs they’ve struck up a friendship. The general perception is they’ve learned to coexist, but remain frenemies at best.

12 Friends: Sasha Banks And Bayley

Before the Women’s Revolution took effect on WWE’s main roster, it gathered steam in NXT. Paige vs. Emma set the table, and Charlotte Flair’s reign as NXT Women’s Champion got the ball rolling in earnest on women wrestling seriously in developmental. Sasha Banks would develop into a truly excellent in ring performer in the months to follow, though, and while she had terrific outings opposite Flair and Becky Lynch, it would be her rivalry with Bayley that largely defined her NXT legacy.

Banks and Bayley squared off at the original NXT TakeOver: Brooklyn show in what turned out to be a barnburner of a match, highlighting Banks’s exceptional work as a vicious heel, paired with Bayley’s terrific efforts as a never say die babyface. The match stole the show and many agreed it was the best show of the entire SummerSlam 2015 weekend, and on the short list for best matches of the year.

The pair would go on to become the first women’s headliners for a WWE Network special, main eventing NXT TakeOver: Respect in an Iron Man Match.

During their time in NXT, Banks and Bayley, like many great in ring rivals, developed not only a mutual respect, but a real friendship that they carried through to the main roster where their journeys have remained intertwined as kayfabe allies, and more recently opponents.

11 Frenemies: Charlotte Flair And Paige

Paige, in many ways, got the ball rolling on the Women’s Revolution in WWE. First, she had a series of forgotten classics opposite Emma in NXT. Then she moved up to the main roster and began pushing the standards for action in women’s matches with her hard nosed style and technical expertise.

Charlotte Flair would debut as Paige’s ally in the PCB stable (along with Becky Lynch) and given Paige’s greater seniority, there was even an unspoken hint of Flair being Paige’s sidekick. That would change before long, though, as Flair would win what was then known as the Divas Championship, go on to decisively beat Paige in a rivalry, and emerge as the face of women’s wrestling in WWE, while Paige went out of action for a mix of suspensions and surgery.

Professional jealousies may be one of the main reasons for Flair and Paige not to entirely get along. There is also the matter of Alberto Del Rio, though. Upon Del Rio’s return to WWE, he promptly started dating Flair and then moved on to Paige, whom he’d get engaged with and with whom he’d have a high profile, long term, tumultuous relationship. With both professional and personal differences at stake, Flair and Paige can’t be considered great friends.

10 Friends: The Bella Twins

While it may be expected that Nikki and Brie Bella—real life twin sisters—would be friends, that outcome isn’t necessarily as obvious as it would seem. After all, the two were featured performers for WWE for a long time, and compelled to work together constantly, usually as friends and sometimes as foes. Their professional obligations extended well past the ring, too, as they’d also stand at the vanguard of WWE’s reality TV partnership with E!, first with the Total Divas series, and then with the show they were even more heavily spotlighted on, Total Bellas.

The Bellas purport to have their differences, with Nikki as more of a girly girl, and Brie a bit more of a hippy. These lifestyles and preferences are embodied in their most high profile romantic partners—Brie’s husband Daniel Bryan, and Nikki’s ex John Cena. Nikki and Brie nonetheless seem to have more common ground than differences.

By all accounts, they’re sisters in the truest sense, consistently involved in each other’s lives, and always having each other’s backs.

Nikki’s full time wrestling career stretched longer than Brie’s, as the latter chose to retire to start her family. Nikki has since been pushed to the verge of her own retirement due to neck issues. It nonetheless seems emblematic of how intertwined their careers and lives are that they both returned to the ring for the 2018 women’s Royal Rumble, and remain still on the periphery of the WWE Universe.

9 Frenemies: Sasha Banks And Alexa Bliss

Not everyone who survives developmental together, or winds up working matches opposite each other winds up friends. Alexa Bliss and Sasha Banks are a prime example of just that. While both made friendships along their way in the business, the two have never been known to connect with one another.

Banks and Bliss may be split by professional jealousies.

After all, in developmental, Banks was part of the vaunted Four Horsewomen who largely dominated the Women’s Championship scene, while Bliss was among those in the supporting cast who never so much as got a shot at having her own match on an NXT TakeOver WWE Network special. Conversely, since moving up to the main roster, Bliss’s prospects have soared as she proved herself at the top of the women’s division on SmackDown before moving to Raw where she’ spent the majority of her tenure reigning as champion. While Banks has had her high profile opportunities, Bliss’s stock soared past Banks’s this past year, as evidenced by Bliss getting a one on one match at this past year’s WrestleMania—an achievement Banks has never attained—while Banks was relegated to the women’s battle royal.

Banks took some pot shots at Bliss across time, on social media and in interviews, which have always walked the line between working a storyline and reality. Most infamously, she accused Bliss as being a poser of a wrestling fan for not knowing the difference between The Hardy Boyz. The two have functioned well enough to put on some good matches together, but still shouldn’t be mistaken for friends.

8 Friends: Ruby Riott And Abbey Laith

Ruby Riott debuted on NXT as a wildcard face who picked a fight with Sanity’s Nikki Cross. Despite getting over reasonably well as a face, when she got the call up to the main roster it was as a heel, heading up her own small faction as the Riott Squad. Not much later, Abbey Laith rose to prominence via the Mae Young Classic tournament on the WWE Network. She was an early standout on account of her technical precision and outstanding work rate. She’d go on to NXT as well, but only be used sparingly on television.

While Riott and Laith had minimal interactions on camera in WWE, but actually had quite the history together. On the independents, Laith wrestled as Princess Kimber Lee, and Riott performed under the name Heidi Lovelace. The two worked as rivals for quite some time, in addition to finally coming together as tag team partners. The two got over nicely on the independent level and helped push one another further, including competing over Chikara’s Grand Championship while Laith reigned as the first woman to hold the title.

It’s a shame the two didn’t get to do more together in WWE, but at least they had one another for support as friends for a time in developmental.

7 Frenemies: Ronda Rousey And Sasha Banks

On a superficial level, everyone involved with WWE is thrilled to have former MMA megastar Ronda Rousey in the company. She’s drawn media attention, grew up a fan of the business, and her debut wrestling performance at WrestleMania 34 demonstrated that she has a world of potential to succeed as a pro wrestler. On top of all of that, she signed to work with WWE full time and traveled between towns. While the company is using her sparingly now, to keep her special, from all indications she’s working hard to further her wrestling skills and will evolve into a normal, featured spot on the roster.

Not everyone is thrilled about Rousey’s positioning. Sasha Banks alluded to her displeasure with Rousey in interviews following the 2018 Royal Rumble event. Banks had played the iron woman in the women’s Rumble match, Rousey had gotten the spotlight in the aftermath, making her first WWE appearance to much fanfare. When Banks was asked about her reaction to Rousey, she commented that she’d learned not to say anything if she didn’t have anything nice to say, so she wasn’t going to comment.

Banks’s resentment of Rousey is easy to understand given how many years Banks dedicated to mastering her craft, while Rousey shot past her based on her success in another field. It will be interesting to see what happens if the two are ever booked in feud with one another.

6 Friends: Asuka And Ember Moon

In the wake of not only the Four Horsewomen of NXT, but also Alexa Bliss, Nia Jax, and Carmella moving up from NXT to the main roster, NXT entered a rebuilding phase. Asuka was the continuous thread between eras, having unseated Bayley for the NXT Women’s Championship, and gone on as an undefeated wrecking ball who took down all challengers.

Ember Moon, a young trainee of Booker T, emerged as the top contender to Asuka’s title, kept separate for a time, only be positioned for not one, but two big showdown matches at TakeOver specials from Dallas and then Brooklyn, during featured WrestleMania and SummerSlam weekends.

Perhaps it was the way in which they put on a collision course, working together to plot out top notch matches, or recognizing early they were both bound for the main roster, but Asuka and Moon reportedly struck up a close friendship behind the scenes during their time in NXT together.

They’re both on the main roster now, though, Asuka was moved to SmackDown just as Moon got called up to Raw. Even if they’re not in the same locker room, there’s little question these two remain friends and will rekindle their connection when they do eventually find themselves on the same brand again.

5 Frenemies: Stephanie McMahon And AJ Lee

As WWE’s Chief Brand Officer and top ranking female executive, Stephanie McMahon is ostensibly a big supporter of all of WWE’s performers, and in particular a champion of all of the women in the company. Despite having put on a smiling face and appearing to stand in the corner of AJ Lee, when she had her record breaking reign as Divas Champion from 2013 into 2014. However, even then, tensions between the two sides began to sprout up.

Lee had a starring role before the so called Women’s Revolution—before women started main eventing TV shows on a fairly regular basis, let alone headlining PPVs, or getting their own Royal Rumble, Money in the Bank Ladder Match, Elimination Chamber, or Hell in a Cell opportunity. She used her position of notoriety to campaign for change, including railing against her fellow female performers and their reality TV pursuits, besides taking to Twitter to start the #GiveDivasAChance movement.

The subtext of all of this, and Lee’s comments since leaving WWE and seeing women’s wrestling take off there has been that Lee sees McMahon’s vocal support for the women’s roster as overdue and hypocritical. It doesn’t help the peace between the two sides that Lee is married to CM Punk, one of WWE’s most disgruntled alumni and most vocal critics. She surely shares much of her husband’s point of view, while their relationship makes WWE particularly disinterested now in celebrating Lee’s legacy.

4 Friends: Charlotte Flair And Becky Lynch

There’s little doubt that Charlotte Flair is the chosen one as WWE’s face of its women’s division. She has the pedigree of being The Nature Boy Ric Flair’s daughter. She’s a tremendous athlete and looks the part, not to mention a very good in ring worker. WWE has booked her as a champion for most of her main roster run, including winning the first women’s main event against Sasha Banks at Hell in a Cell 2016, and more recently ending Asuka’s undefeated streak at WrestleMania 34.

Like most of today’s younger WWE stars, though, Flair had her start in NXT, learning the ropes, cultivating her character, and generally developing as an all around professional wrestler before she was ready for prime time. While she was there, she struck up a close friendship with Becky Lynch, a more experienced wrestler on the cusp of retirement before a break with WWE lured her back into performing full time. Flair has cited Lynch as someone she learned a lot from during that formative time.

Flair and Lynch carried forward their relationship to the main roster where they grouped up with Paige as Team PCB, and later feuded over the Women’s Championship after Flair turned heel. Through it all, they remained friends, and both indicated they were happy when they got to reunite on the SmackDown roste this spring.

3 Frenemies: Candice LeRae And Sunny

After a successful run in the Mae Young Classic as a white meat babyface, Candice LeRae was a well received NXT signee. She’s a skilled wrestler who had the added boost in credibility from hardcore fans for being Johnny Gargno’s wife. LeRae came to WWE after having spent well over a decade working the independent wrestling scene, and over the course of her journeys, she had crossed path with WWE Hall of Famer Sunny.

Sunny may never have been an accomplished in ring worker, but there’s little denying her place as a legend in wrestling, and particularly on the WWE landscape.

Her 1990s run as a manager set her up arguably the original “Diva”—a sex symbol who drew more attention and heat than quite few actual wrestlers, setting up WWE’s business model around hiring models and playing up their physical appeal for years to come.

It’s understandable that Sunny and LeRae would run in different circles and have different philosophies regarding the business. However, they must really rubbed each other the wrong way at some point. Upon LeRae’s signing with WWE, Sunny took the offensive. She commented that LeRae was too ugly to ever make the main roster, and attacked her history of mixed wrestling for hurting the business. While LeRae hasn’t publicly commented in response, she can’t appreciate this sort of commentary, especially when she’d just garnered the biggest break of her career.

2 Friends: Paige And Alicia Fox

While they were scarcely portrayed as allies on screen, Paige and Alicia Fox have enjoyed significant overlap in their WWE tenures, as they’re increasingly among the elder stateswomen of the company—at least as far as years since their debuts. Paige joined the main roster in 2014, while Fox predates her, having had her first WWE main roster match in 2008, joining Natalya and Mickie James as the most experienced women to work with WWE full time, and particularly to do so continuously.

As portrayed on the Total Divas reality series Paige and Fox are good friends and backstage allies. WWE even went so far as to riff off of this publicized history upon Paige’s return to an on screen role after neck surgery, when she debuted the Absolution stable. The group sidled up to Fox backstage, with Paige reassuring her old buddy to be at ease because she was her best friend and she was happy to see her. It was all a ruse in kayfabe, of course, to get Fox’s guard down before Paige and her new allies, Mandy Rose and Sonya Deville delivered a beatdown to help establish them as a dangerous faction with no allegiances outside of their own circle.

1 Frenemies: Nikki Bella And Maria Kanellis

Before the Bellas were featured in WWE, let alone before WWE started taking women’s wrestling more seriously and pushing female wrestlers as legitimate athletes, there was Maria Kanellis. Kanellis was one of the most featured performers from the bridge era in between Attitude and today. Besides being a beautiful woman, she played a comedically ditzy character who peaked as Santino Marella’s girlfriend, which led her to the then-annual WWE Playboy spot and ensuing WrestleMania match in 2008. During her tenure, Kanellis claims to have struck up a close personal friendship behind the scenes with Dolph Ziggler.

Early in the Bella Twins’ run, late in Kanellis’s, Nikki Bella was dating The Show Off, and things got ugly when Kanellis danced with him at a party, sparking Nikki and Brie’s jealousy.

Not having the Bellas like her may not have been a big deal at the time. However, after Kanellis left WWE, and the Bellas grew more entrenched—even leaving themselves, and coming back in a more featured role, as the anchor of the company’s reality TV efforts—the grudge became more impactful. Rumor had it the twins used their stroke to blackball Kanellis, and her hubby Mike, from coming to WWE.

Kanellis did make it back to WWE last year, but her return closely coincided with Brie having semi-retired and Nikki becoming increasingly part time with the company. Kanellis would step out of the limelight, too, after she revealed she was pregnant. It will be interesting to keep tabs on what happens if or when Kanellis and Nikki wind up in the same locker room for an extended stretch again.