Nobody saw the John Cena-Nikki Bella break-up coming. Everybody expected him to finally come out of his belief that he couldn’t be a good husband, but it’s all come crashing down now (although it appears as though they will in fact reunite). Similarly, the more in-the-know fans sometimes even get their predictions wrong when it comes to romances.

Not just hardcore NXT fans but even those who had a passing interest in NXT wanted Finn Balor and Bayley to get together after seeing the duo dance together inside the ring at numerous NXT house shows. The Demon King, as he always does, trolled the IWC, with cryptic tweets. Little did they know that Bayley has been dating indie wrestler Aaron Solow since a very long time.

It wasn’t the first time that fans clamoured for a wrestling duo to become a thing, however. Ever since William Regal and Triple H teamed Carmella up with Big Cass and Enzo Amore in NXT, a good number of NXT fans wanted The Certified G to win Carmella’s heart. Only a few were excited to see Big Cass and Carmella fall in love and even fewer people cared about their recent break-up.

Despite the above-mentioned hiccups, hardcore fans are usually excellent at seeing wrestling relationships from miles away. Only a few relationships have caught them off-guard; the following article looks at 15 such relationships.

In the event that you like the article, please share it with your wrestling-fan friends. Plus, if you a different relationships belongs in this list, feel free to mention the same in the comments’ section.

15 Zahra Schreiber and Sonya Deville

It was well known for a while that Sonya Deville was dating a fellow MMA person Christina Heath, but the relationship unfortunately didn’t last a very long time.

Zahra Schreiber, whom many may remember as Seth Rollins’ ex, tweeted out a photo from the WWE Hall of Fame red carpet with the Absolution enforcer, and they bid their time before making their relationship official.

“Two years ago my mom and I didn't talk for months because I told her I had a girlfriend,” wrote the former developmental talent on Twitter on May 16. “Recently I once again told her the same thing. She happily wanted to know about her. Today she asked me to remind her tonight to turn the TV on so she could watch her match.”

When WWE fired her over questionable behaviour on social media, many expected her to fall off the face of the planet. She’s, however, managed to win over yet another top WWE talent, with absolutely nobody seeing it coming. It's fair to say that many were surprised by this development, as going out with someone who's essentially blacklisted by the company doesn't tend to go over well, but as they say, you can't help who you fall in love with.

14 Zack Ryder and Laurel Van Ness

Emma has had a decent career outside of the WWE umbrella, wrestling for ROH Wrestling and other major American indie promotions and almost signing for World Wonder Ring Stardom. Her romantic life has also undergone tonnes of changes in the recent times, with her breaking up with Zack Ryder around this time last year. While Emma has largely focused on creating a name for herself on the indie circuit, The Long Island Iced Z has not just become slightly more relevant than he formerly was but has wasted no time before entering the dating pool again.

He’s now in a relationship with Impact Wrestling’s Chelsea Green, who’s also known as Laurel Van Ness. The couple haven’t shied away from sharing the highlights from their relationship with the Internet Wrestling Community, as both of them have shared pictures from their trips to Walt Disney World and Disney’s All-Star Movies Resort. He’s also introduced her to his parents, taken her on a wild night on Bourbon Street and multiple dinner nights and even brought her to WWE Hall of Fame ceremony. If you spot a couple at WWE’s HOF night, it’s pretty much confirmed that they’re taking the relationship seriously.

What make this relationship unexpected are their living in different cities, working for different promotions and never working together save for the few months when she participated in Tough Enough.

13 Bray Wyatt and JoJo

Until very recently, Bray Wyatt looked to be in a happy marriage with his now-ex-wife Samantha Rotunda. He even had two kids with her, but it all came crashing down when his wife filed for divorce last year and it was later revealed that Bray had begun a relationship with WWE announcer JoJo.British publication Daily Mail reported that his wife was accusing him of refusing to pay about $14,735 as spousal and child support. The former WWE Champion responded duly with a cryptic tweet that read, “People spread lies. You know who you are. Lies. All lies, but a wolf never loses sleep over the opinion of sheep.”

If the fan-leaked images are anything to go by, they’re still together even though they don’t seem keen on plastering their relationship on Instagram and Twitter, much like most celebrity couples do these days.

What makes their romance unexpected is well, just look at Bray Wyatt and look at JoJo. Talk about a beauty and the beast scenario. Her dating history is one that includes Randy Orton, PJ Black and Vader’s son Jesse White. That said, here’s hoping they become the next Jeff Jarrett and Karen Jarrett and not the next Edge and Lita.

12 Tyler Bate and Liv Morgan

Enzo Amore and Liv Morgan looked a match made in heaven. Both hail from New Jersey, are good-looking, belong to the same age group and are excellent at delivering promos. The Certified G, however, decided to throw a spanner in the works, by allegedly cheating on her. While he decided to focus on his career and the lawsuit that was filed against him, she’s elected to swifty enter the dating pool again. Given the fact the she has been on the main roster since November 2017, one would expect her to be courting someone from the main roster, like Dolph Ziggler or Fandango, but she’s strangely entered a rebound relationship with former United Kingdom Champion Tyler Bate. The couple flirted on Twitter and Instagram like teenagers for a while, but it now looks like the relationship is no longer alive, with The Riott Squad member stating that she was single on Ruby Riott’s Instagram video in April 2018.

It’s unknown if she was joking, but one would not be surprised if they no longer are a thing. It can be hard to maintain a relationship when one wrestles predominantly in England and Full Sail University and the other wrestles in different parts of the world, including Australia, Germany and South Africa on a weekly basis.

The relationship, however long it was, definitely caught the wrestling enthusiasts off guard.

11 Kalan Blehm and Paige

Paige has had inarguably one of the wildest lives a pro wrestler has ever had. She entered the industry as a toddler, as her parents, Saraya Knight and Ricky Knight had already been heavily involved in the British indie scene when she was born. As any person exposed to and embroiled in pro-wrestling from a young age, she’s made many questionable decisions along the way. We really don’t want to delve much into the decisions she’s made, as it’s been done before a million times before already by journalists, fans and wrestlers.

When Paige returned from a prolonged hiatus, many fully backed her, which was quite surprising, as pro wrestling fans are known to be a notorious bunch. However, a career-ending injury made her deliver her retirement speech on RAW only to be picked up by Shane McMahon as the General Manager of SmackDown Live. With the show set to move to Fox shortly, Paige’s fame will skyrocket. However, her professional life isn’t the only aspect of her life to face a recent upswing.

It was reported in February 2018 that she’d entered a relationship with Attila bassist Kalan Blehm. The couple posted multiple pictures to their respective Instagram accounts. One of his captions was: “We’re too weird to live and too rare to die.” Unlike most of her posts during her relationship with Alberto El Patron, none of her posts these days are cringy, as they seem to take things slow as most sensible couples do. Here’s hoping she doesn’t go through yet another hurdle.

10 Tino Sabbatelli and Mandy Rose

A lot has been said about Mandy Rose’s love life. In January 2018, Heavy Machinery’s Otis Dozovic wrote on Twitter, “My WCW is my beautiful peach and future wife Mandy Rose.” His tweet shook the wrestling world, as many tagged the biggest mismatch since the Hornswoggle vs. Big Show on Superstars in 2009. That wasn’t the first time the NXT tag-team specialist tweeted about her, as he’d tweeted that he was a lucky man with a picture of her in a bikini before that. However, it wasn’t until the recent WWE Hall of Fame ceremony that many realized that he was only joking around. She had brought with her NXT’s Tino Sabbatelli to the red carpet and even told in an interview on Chasing Glory with Lilian Garcia podcast that he, a NXT talent, was allowed to be on the HOF show only because he was with her.

Unlike most other wrestling couples, however, she never posts couple pictures to her Instagram but asking him to be with her at the HOF show pretty much confirms they’re serious about the relationship.

Her real-life relationship with him hasn’t stopped Vince McMahon and co. to devise a love angle of sorts with her, however, as she’s shown to be having a few moments with Goldust as a part of the Mixed Match Challenge show. Despite that, most wrestling fans believe that her new relationship will outlast most wrestling relationships we’ve ever seen, as she was previously in a six-year relationship with a New York restaurateur named Michael Lubic.

What makes their relationship unexpected is the fact that she hasn’t been wrestling at Full Sail University since November 2017. How they’ve been able to enter or maintain the relationship despite the contrasting travel schedules makes it truly remarkable.

9 Becky Lynch and Luke Sanders

Becky Lynch was made a part of the Four Horsewomen mainly since she was one of the four women who helped WWE revamp their women's division. However, when you compare the indie experience she's had with that of Sasha Banks, Bayley and Charlotte Flair, she comes off as an industry veteran. With dating and marrying fellow wrestlers being in vogue, it's shocking that she's not currently dating or married to a wrestler. In fact, most restless that she has trained with are already married to fellow wrestlers and a few such as Luke Gallows and Amber O’Neal have already gone through a divorce. However, she hasn't been living a loveless life either, as she was recently dating UFC fighter Luke Sanders for several years.

WWE wrestlers and UFC fighters have had rich history, and Becky Lynch has even gotten herself embroiled in multiple controversies, with her slamming Conor McGregor and starting a feud with MMA’s Four Horsewomen. However, that didn't stop her from going out with the 32-year-old bantamweight fighter. The Irish Lasskicker didn't share a lot of their pictures online, as she stuck to sharing pictures with her best friend Charlotte Flair. Lynch recently unfollowed Sanders on social media and removed pictures of the two, so Lynch is back on the market now. We wonder if she has her eye on someone on the WWE roster.

8 Seth Rollins and Sarah Alesandrelli

Many have derided Seth Rollins for acting a poor imitation of Shawn Michaels, but he has proved his naysayers wrong, putting on four-star matches consistently no matter who his opponent is. However, it's not only in the ring that he's emulating The Heart Break Kid, for he's doing so off the ring as well. We're not talking about posing for Playgirl; for those who may be interested, The Architect did wrestle a few matches that catered to the homosexual audience. Anyway, one aspect of his personal life that definitely has many things in common with his idol is his love life.

The Grand Slam Champion dated a fellow wrestler Leighla Schultz during his early WWE days, but he eventually moved along with Zahra Schreiber, who also makes an appearance on this list. After his girlfriend aired his dirty laundry, he remained single for a significant amount of time. He's now reportedly dating Sarah Alesandrelli.

You may be forgiven for not knowing who she's, for she's far from a celebrity.

A Netherlands-born girl, she's now reportedly living in Chicago. While her current professional status is unknown, she's known to have worked as a bartender in Houston before moving to the Windy City.

7 Bayley and Aaron Solow

Bayley is what every small child wants to become. Even the biggest of the Bayley critics will likely change their mind if they watch WWE YouTube's WWE Formerly Known As video. Even those who have humble beginnings will want to make wholesale changes to their life if they enjoy as much success as the former Raw Women's Champion has had; however, she's remained who she's always been: Pamela Rose Martinez.

She's has been in a relationship with indie wrestler Aaron Solow for a very long time, and the common consensus is that she met him while training to be a wrestler with Jason Styles. While she's been able to wrestler her way through Shine Wrestling, Shimmer Women Athletes and NXT to become Raw Women's Champion, he's been a relatively slow developer. He continues to wrestle predominantly on the indie circuit for WrestleCircus and a few Texas-based promotions. He even recently had a few matches for 205 Live and NXT, and he wants to be more than "more than just Bayley’s boyfriend."

What makes their relationship rather surprising is the fact that they've been able to keep their romance alive despite the likelihood of ego clashes and the effect of being away from each other for months could have.

6 Sasha Banks and Sarath Ton

Bayley and Sasha Banks may be having issues as of late — it's real to me, damn it — but they do have a lot in common still. While Bayley has managed to keep the flame with her fiance despite only meeting him less frequently than most couples do, her friend-enemy The Boss has remained in love with WWE costume designer Sarath Ton. While it's now common knowledge that she's dating a non-wrestling WWE employee, but what even hardcore WWE fans don't seem to know is the fact they've been married for almost two years now.

While they now come across as one of the handful of WWE-employee couples, they had met many years before her making her debut for WWE. The legend has it that the couple met while they both were wrestling on the indies on the north-eastern United States. Some reliable accounts even state that their first significant conversation saw him, who was designing costumes to make extra money besides wrestling as Kid Mikaze then, offer to design her wrestling gear. An injury ended his wrestling career, but Triple H decided to bring him on board as a costume designer upon her recommendation.

What makes their romance rather unexpected is the rift in their popularity.

5 Alexa Bliss and Buddy Murphy

Many consider Alexa Bliss WWE's chosen one as the company has handed her multiple title reigns and the limelight ahead of the Internet Wrestling Community's darlings such as Becky Lynch, Bayley and Emma. However, she did work her socks off in NXT before being made The Goddess of WWE and a four-time Women's Champion. In fact, while wrestling for NXT, she didn't just catch the eye of Vince McMahon and co., for she also found her fiance, Buddy Murphy then. The couple even worked together, as she managed him and his tag-team partner Wesley Blake.

After her move to the main roster in 2016, her fame grew in leaps and bounds, while he struggled with multiple injuries.

WWE refrained from mentioning her real-life relationship with him, and he even aptly earned the nickname 'Professional Wrestling's Best Kept Secret'. His career has seen a recent resurgence, with his becoming a juggernaut on 205 Live. Although he's not on Neville's level of badassery, he's proved that he could have four-star matches consistently, with his series of matches against Mustafa Ali excellent cases in point.

The Little Miss Bliss' being one of the biggest stars on the roster and his being absolutely irrelevant until recently makes their romance unexpected.

4 Finn Balor and Cathy Kelley

With Finn Balor being single for many years, wrestling observers alleged all sorts of ridiculous rumors about Balor, but his most recent romantic partner has squashed many previous rumors. Although he didn't officially claim that he was going out with Cathy Kelley, there have been many pictures of them together and fans could put 2 and 2 together. The couple haven't officially commented on it, but many insiders, including Sean Waltman, have stated that they, indeed, are a thing.

Many have been clamoring for Kurt Angle's signing her for Raw, but the YouTube personality remains on the fringes, with Renee Young's being a main attraction on WWE television. How the couple have managed to keep the flame alive, with her primarily working from the WWE's social-media office and his touring the world with other wrestling talents, is truly shocking, but what's more shocking is how they ended up dating in the first place.

Balor is currently a little lost on WWE television, as the company doesn't seem to be sure whether Balor can be a top star on the main roster or not. It's a good thing Balor at least has some stability in his love life, because there's a lot of frustrating aspects of his professional life right now.

3 Andrade Almas and Zelina Vega

"Congrats to my ex-girlfriend Zelina Vega on her SmackDown Live debut," wrote Austin Aries on his Twitter recently. "I know firsthand all the time, effort, and sacrifice that went into making this special dream a reality." While Zelina Vega, formerly known as Thea Trinidad, has gained fame through her excellent in-ring work, she's managed to make the big leagues solely based off her ability to Paul Heyman. However, one prize that she seems to have paid is her relationship with A Double. Although none claims that his leaving WWE was the sole reason behind their break-up, it's likely that it played a role. However, their break-up has definitely resulted in either party ending up beneficiaries. He's now the main attraction in every wrestling promotion that's not titled WWE, while she's become a SmackDown Live superstar and the girlfriend of inarguably the biggest Latino wrestler on WWE's roster Andrade Almas.

Neither party has confirmed their relationship, but a few Mexican insiders seem convinced that they're definitely an item.

Given her ability to speak Spanish fluently, it's not surprising that they're more than hitting it off. Here's hoping they remain together for a very long time, so they both can at least have fantastic careers together.

2 Bret Hart and Stephanie Washington

Bret Hart has had a humdinger of a wrestling career and a roller-coaster of a personal life. He essentially laid foundation for WWE's Attitude Era, which took pro-wrestling to a level the industry has never seen before and will likely never see. His personal life, on the other hand, saw him get married to Julie Smadu throughout his wrestling career, but as he detailed in his autobiography, he wasn't the best husband until they split in 2002. He was married again by the time he returned for his Hall of Fame induction in 2006, but his second marriage didn't last a very long time as well. Much like his former enemy, now friend Ric Flair, he didn't waste a lot of time before falling in love again. He fell for a much younger non-wrestler, Stephanie Washington, and the couple exchanged vows in 2010.

While nobody saw it coming, what shocked most observers was the fact his third wife was just as old — or young — as one of his daughters.

The 60-year-old was also a grandfather of two kids then. However, the couple seem to be going strong, eight years after their marriage as they've managed to beat his prostate cancer together. Here's hoping their marriage lasts a very long time.

1 Aiden English and Shaul Guerrero

Aiden English’s life has been on an upswing since the start of 2016. For starters, he got rid of what were holding him back: Simon Gotch and The Vaudevillains gimmick. He's now become an integral part of a phenomenon: Rusev Day. His personal life also did see something amazing happen: he got married. He got married to a woman he had been engaged to for over a year. Most wrestling fans won't recognize her, but she did dabble in a bit of wrestling before leaving the business for good four months before her engagement. She went by the name Raquel Diaz, and what even hardcore fans of the art form may not know is the fact that she's the biological daughter of Eddie Guerrero.

While WWE is known to milk certain names, it remains unknown why they never let her wrestle under her real name, for it would have surely made her much more marketable. However, she must be glad now that they didn't do that, for she's now living off the grid, away from the paparazzi's camera flashes.

Even though they both were wrestling for Florida Championship Wrestling and NXT for over two years, nobody saw their romance, much less the engagement coming, as they'd managed to keep their relationship rather low-key until that point.