The Miz and Maryse Ouellet attend WWE & E! Entertainment’s “SuperStars For Hope” at the Beverly Hills Hotel on August 15, 2013 in Beverly Hills, California. (Getty)
In the WWE, off-screen relationships between wrestlers are almost as common as on-screen feuds. After all, these WWE athletes are traveling almost all the time, and so for most of the year, they are really only seeing the people they work with.
Naturally, romances develop, and there are tons of WWE personalities who are dating other people on the roster. In some cases, this is incorporated into the storyline, as is the case with the relationship between The Miz and Maryse. Other times, though, the relationship is something that is never acknowledged on WWE programming, and so you may be surprised to learn that two superstars who usually never cross paths are actually dating.
As of May 2017, here are all of the WWE superstars who are in relationships with other WWE employees.
John Cena & Nikki Bella
John Cena proposes to Nikki Bella at WrestleMania. (WWE.com)
Probably the most high-profile WWE relationship is the one between John Cena and Nikki Bella. After all, when Cena recently proposed to Bella at WrestleMania, it made headlines everywhere and was one of the most talked about moments from the entire show.
Cena and Bella have been dating since 2012. At the time that they began seeing each other, Cena had just gotten divorced from his wife, Elizabeth Huberdeau. Nikki Bella, meanwhile, was taking a hiatus from the WWE at the time following the loss of her Diva’s Championship to Lalya at Extreme Rules.
Cena told Us Magazine that he has something “extremely special” with Nikki Bella.
“She’s truly the love of my life, and she deserves to be treated as such,” he said. “Because we’re in the same industry, she truly understands that there will be fans that are looking for a different sort of admiration, but it takes two to be disrespectful, and I would like to think that in most every encounter, I try to treat her with as much respect as I can.”
Nikki Bella has talked about the fact that in some ways, dating John Cena has actually made her life more difficult because people always presume that she is dating him just to get ahead in the WWE.
“I’ve actually had to hear it for the past four years of my life,” she told Digital Spy. “Every. Single. Day.”
The relationship between John Cena and Nikki Bella has been thoroughly documented on the shows Total Bellas and Total Divas. Cena had previously said that he did not want to have children with Nikki Bella, but it appears that he has since changed his mind.
Daniel Bryan & Brie Bella
The other relationship documented on Total Bellas is the one between Daniel Bryan, the SmackDown Live commissioner, and Brie Bella, a WWE superstar.
Daniel Bryan and Brie Bella have been together since 2011. They started dating shortly after having a storyline together in which they were dating within kayfabe.
“It actually started as a story line and then we really hit it off,” Daniel Bryan told PW Mania in 2013. “Actually it was shortly before our story line ended we kind of started dating each other. We kind of started off real slow, but now we’ve been together for two and a half years.”
In 2014, Bella and Bryan were married, and their wedding was filmed for Total Divas.
“I couldn’t ask for a better man, best friend, father, and husband to spend the rest of my life with,” Brie Bella said as part of her wedding vows. “Your humble heart, sense of soul, has made me a better person. Every time I look into your eyes, I immediately feel comfort.”
Bella and Bryan are about to have a child, a baby girl who was due earlier this week but who is a few days late. They say they plan to have two children.
Dean Ambrose & Renee Young
Dean Ambrose and Renee Young on an episode of ‘Unfiltered.’ (WWE Network)
For a long time, the relationship between Dean Ambrose and Renee Young was something that nobody in the WWE ever talked about. In fact, Young and Ambrose dated for a long time before even publicly acknowledging that they are a couple.
We have since learned that the relationship began in October 2013. Young says that there wasn’t really a precise moment when it all started, but rather, the two of them just got along really well backstage and started hanging out a lot.
“I don’t even know if I can pinpoint exactly what it was,” Young told Channel Guide Magazine. “It was like instantly we were together. We were always talking to each other. We were always spending all of our time together. It just kind of happened. We just caught each other’s eye and were always around each other.”
It wasn’t until May 2015 that Renee Young acknowledged that she’s dating Dean Ambrose, although there were plenty of rumors out there by that point.
“Yeah, yes we are,” Young said in an interview with Gorilla Position. “We are dating. We’re in love. We don’t care who knows it! It’s true, yes.”
Young and Ambrose just recently got married. This wasn’t an elaborate affair filmed for television like the marriage between Brie Bella and Daniel Bryan. Rather, they just randomly decided to get married one night.
“So we ended up going on Yelp and we found a 24-hour pastor to come to our backyard,” Young told E! Online. “It was so handy and his name was Pastor Pete and he lived around the corner from us, so he was there. They were very concerned by the way because it was 1 o’clock in the morning, so technically it was Sunday and they were very concerned about us calling, they were like, ‘Is everything OK? Have you guys been drinking? What’s happening?’ We’re like, ‘It’s fine, you can come down.’”
Young and Ambrose live together in Las Vegas, Nevada.
Naomi & Jimmy Uso
The relationship between Naomi and Jimmy Uso is one that’s rarely acknowledged on WWE programming, even though they are both members of the SmackDown Live roster.
Naomi and Jimmy Uso, though, began dating in 2009, and in 2014, they got married in Hawaii.
“One of the happiest days in my life,” Jimmy Uso wrote on his Instagram account at the time. “Still trying to believe it!!”
Naomi has said that Jimmy Uso is her best friend.
“He’s my best friend, my supporter and we’re inseparable, seriously,” Naomi told JET Magazine.
Although Naomi and Jimmy Uso don’t acknowledge their relationship on WWE programming, they mention it very frequently on social media; both Naomi and Jimmy Uso frequently post photos together on social media.
Bayley & Aaron Solow
Bayley and Aaron Solow attend Wrestlemania 31 in 2015. (Instagram)
Bayley, the former Raw Women’s Champion, is in a relationship with Aaron Solow.
Solow is not someone that most WWE viewers will know very well; he performs primarily on the independent circuit, but he has also worked with the WWE, serving as an alternate during the Cruiserweight Classic.
Recently, Solow has performed on 205 Live, the WWE Network show featuring the cruiserweight division. In his debut 205 Live! match, Solow was defeated by Akira Tozawa. That was also Tozawa’s debut. Bayley at the time posted a photo congratulating Solow.
Congratulations @aaronsolow!
And you too, @TozawaAkira 😏 #205Live
Aaron Solow and Bayley reportedly got engaged in 2016. That has been reported in various wrestling news outlets, but technically, neither Bayley nor Solow has ever confirmed the engagement, as in general they are quite private about their relationship.
Alexa Bliss & Buddy Murphy
Alexa Bliss, the current Raw Women’s Champion, is in a relationship with Buddy Murphy.
Buddy Murphy is someone that viewers will only be familiar with if they watch NXT. He performs under the company’s developmental division, formerly in a tag team called Blake and Murphy with Wesley Blake. He and Blake are one-time NXT Tag Team Champions.
Murphy actually used to work with Alexa Bliss on NXT; she was once paired up with Blake and Murphy in a lengthy storyline. But in 2016, Alexa Bliss was called up to the main roster, while Murphy remains on NXT.
Alexa Bliss and Buddy Murphy are now engaged. This became clear in early 2017, but Bliss told Gorilla Position that the two have been engaged since December 2015; they just hadn’t announced it publicly until January 2017.
So why haven’t the two gotten married yet? Well, Bliss told Gorilla Position that the two of them just got incredibly busy. Around the time they were planning the wedding, Bliss was called up to SmackDown Live, and so their lives became quite complicated.
Because they perform on different WWE brands, it’s difficult for Bliss and Murphy to see one another, and she says that they only see each other for about six hours a week. However, Bliss says she actually thinks their relationship has been made stronger as a result.
She told Gorilla Position, “It’s one of those things that we’ve had to adapt to for sure, but I think if anything it’s made us stronger because you have to have that trust and know that, you know, I’m super proud of him and everything he’s accomplished in NXT, and he’s super proud of me, and we watch each other’s matches all the time, and he always texts me after every segment on SmackDown, and I know he’s watching and we’re in it together.”
Carmella & Big Cass
SmackDown Live‘s Carmella is in a relationship with Monday Night Raw‘s Big Cass.
Carmella and Big Cass, of course, used to be paired together. Back in their NXT days, Carmella worked alongside Enzo Amore and Big Cass, and she was even a part of their intro; Enzo Amore used to say, “And this right here? This is Carmella, and she’s hot as hell, and you can’t teach that.”
However, when Big Cass and Enzo Amore were called up to the main roster, Carmella remained on NXT. She later made it to the main roster in the 2016 draft, but she was assigned to SmackDown Live, whereas Big Cass went to Raw.
Cass later said that he thinks it was the right move keeping her apart from Enzo and Cass.
“[Triple H] told her it’s what’s best for her,” Cass said on Talk is Jericho. “And I’ve got to be honest, I believe it because if she came up with us, she would’ve just played second fiddle to me and Enzo and she wouldn’t have been able to make as much of a name for herself. Her being on her own for a few months in NXT before coming up to SmackDown on her own, I think it really, really helped her because she’s her own established character.”
The Miz & Maryse
The Miz and Maryse Ouellet attend WWE’s 2014 SuperStars For Kids at the New Orleans Museum of Art on April 3, 2014 in New Orleans City. (Getty)
The Miz and Maryse’s characters on Monday Night Raw are married, and they are married in real life as well.
The two actually met in 2006 during a WWE Diva’s Search. Maryse was competing that year, and she later revealed in an interview with WrestletalkTV that The Miz was mean to her during their first encounter.
“He was so mean to me,” she said. “Oh my God. I couldn’t speak English, and he was rubbing it in my face. He was just like, ‘You can’t speak English. What are you doing here? You can’t work with the biggest sports entertainment company in the world if you don’t speak a word of English.'”
Maryse ended up getting picked for the Diva’s Search, but that’s not when the romance with The Miz began to blossom. That wouldn’t happen for another year.
“She was picked, but we didn’t start dating then,” The Miz told Cosmopolitan.” About a year later we started talking after one of the Raw events. I was like, ‘Man if only I could get a girl like this. One of these days I will get a girl like this and I will be so happy.’ And I did!”
The Miz and Maryse were married in 2014 in the Bahamas. They don’t currently have any children, but they say they plan to have some one day.
Lana & Rusev
Lana and her real-life husband Rusev. (Instagram/TheLanaWWE)
Like The Miz and Maryse, Lana and Rusev are married both on screen and in real life.
Like a lot of WWE romances, this one began when the two were placed in a storyline together. They began to see each other more often as a result of the storyline, and a romance soon began.
“She became my best friend right away and we were talking and texting all the time and all of that,” Rusev said on Talk is Jericho. “And, eventually, little by little, once we started working together-together, and when you spend more time with somebody….we kissed at some point. And then, the American thing happened. So we kissed and we’re hanging out. We were boyfriend and girlfriend in my book. But then, one day she goes and says… what did you say? ‘Are we together?’ And I was like, ‘what do you think we’ve been doing for the past four months?’ What is that even supposed to me? I’ve never understood that. In my country when you kiss somebody for four months, everything is straight and you’re damn sure you’re boyfriend and girlfriend!”
Lana and Rusev became engaged in 2015, and they were married in 2016.
Rusev is currently away from the WWE due to a legitimate injury. Lana, meanwhile, is soon expected to make her SmackDown Live debut, performing on her own without Rusev by her side.
Sasha Banks & Mikaze
Sasha Banks defeats Charlotte and wins the WWE Women’s Championship. (WWE.com)
Monday Night Raw‘s Sasha Banks is married to Sarath Ton, also known as Kid Mikaze.
Mikaze is a wrestler who has performed on the independent circuit and who now makes costumes for the WWE. He has made some iconic costumes for superstars like Paige and Summer Rae, but he’s also made all of Sasha Banks’ gear as well.
In an interview with The Miami Herald, Sasha Banks said that she wanted her in-ring gear to stand out and be different, but Mizake was the one who was able to work out the details and get it just right.
“Most recently I haven’t been able to pick out what colors I wanted or scheme,” Banks said. “I just had him do it, because now he knows what I want. He envisions it. I just tell him, ‘I want to look the best, the greatest. Just do your thing,’ and he always makes me look amazing.”
Sasha Banks Publicly Confirms Her Marriage For The First Time, Reason For Secret Wedding t.co/vlLzRLlzZn
Sasha Banks rarely ever talks about Mikaze, and for the longest time, she did not confirm the fact that they are married. She recently said that this is because Mikaze often gets hate online from Sasha Banks’ fans.
“I am married,” she said on the Making Their Way To The Ring podcast. “I just hide it because our fans are so crazy sometimes, you know?…I see what they write to him on Twitter, and I don’t like that stuff. If you’re saying he’s ugly, or he shouldn’t be with me because of this or that, that hurts me, you know?”
Natalya & Tyson Kidd
SmackDown Live‘s Natalya is married to Tyson Kidd.
Kidd has been signed with the WWE since 2006, but he is currently away from the company due to a legitimate neck injury. The injury was quite serious; only five percent of people even survive it, and many who do become quadriplegic.
5% of people survive this injury. 16 staples, 4 screws and a rod later and luckily I survived to tell my story. http://t.co/hXpXpA0aAF
In December 2016, Natalya posted a photo of her husband, saying that he is incredibly strong.
She wrote, “Since it’s #UnbreakableMonday, I had to stop and reflect on how strong this guy is! This year has marked the first year since 1995 that TJ hasn’t had a wrestling match, but every day TJ’s been focused on his physical and mental recovery after having c1-c2 spinal fusion. TJ really is a strong example that the mind and body are capable of powerful things!! I find inspiration in his strength every single day. Tj always reminding me to be #unbreakable.”