A.J.

April Jeanette Mendez (born March 19, 1987) is an American professional wrestler. She is signed to WWE, where she goes by the ring name AJ Lee and serves as the General Manager of Raw. Mendez enrolled in a wrestling school in March 2007, where she trained for six months before her first official match. In the following years, she performed for several Northeast-based independent promotions including Women Superstars Uncensored (WSU) as Miss April. In WSU, she was part of the AC Express alongside Brooke Carter and the duo held the WSU Tag Team Championship once. In May 2009, she signed a developmental contract with World Wrestling Entertainment (WWE), and was assigned to Florida Championship Wrestling (FCW), WWE's developmental promotion, using the ring name AJ Lee. In FCW, she was Queen of FCW and FCW Divas Champion, and was the first person to have held both titles. In 2010, she was part of the third season of NXT, having dropped her last name. She became part of WWE's SmackDown brand in May 2011, forming a tag team with Kaitlyn known as The Chickbusters. A self-professed nerd and tomboy, WWE adapted Mendez's comics and video game fandom to her on-screen character, endorsing her as different from the typical women in the WWE and promoting her as the Geek Goddess.