“D’ya know, say Rebecca Quin, because I don’t get that very often.”
Tommy Tiernan nails his talk-show interviews, more often than not, but there was a sense that he only scratched the surface with Becky Lynch.
For a man who has made his name talking feverishly about glorious nonsense and the buck-mad side of life, one would have suspected Tiernan would have connected firm and fast with the WWE star. Instead, we only got to see a glimpse of the woman behind her persona as ‘The Man’ and one of the biggest stars in sports entertainment.
Tiernan has built up a fantastic show, in recent years, and has created such a cult following that not only did his Saturday night broadcasts often pull more ratings than The Late Late Show, it was not considered outlandish when his name frequently cropped up as potential Ryan Tubridy replacement.
Becky Lynch – real name Rebecca Quin – was the first guest on Saturday night’s airing of ‘The Tommy Tiernan Show’. The comedian, and host, is said to have no clue who he is interviewing until the guest’s name is read out, but there was something very showy in how Tiernan mouthed ‘The Man?’ as Fred Cooke introduced the professional wrestler.
Her wrestling moniker was re-visited during an interview that has created a bit of stir since it aired.
Tommy Tiernan eager to know about the real Becky Lynch
In total, Tommy Tiernan and Becky Lynch spoke for just over 16 minutes during the show. The real shame was that we only got to some really good stuff in the closing few minutes.
He fell for that old trick of focusing on the character when the real person was right behind the mask, ready and willing to tell him anything he wanted to know.
Tiernan grew up watching ‘The Giant Haystacks’ and other pro wrestlers in the 1980s but happily drifted away when he reached his teenage years and beyond into adulthood. He looks at the likes of the WWE as many people, no doubt, do – a highly choreographed pice of hyperbole-drenched razzmatazz. A fiction with giant, waving foam fingers.
Still, he came off as crude in a couple of exchanges as he dismissed any sort of career achievements that Lynch was informing him about. Any time she tried to sell him on the product, he pulled a face, laughed it off or spoke of clamouring ‘eejits’. When Lynch spoke of performing in front of 100,000 WWE fans, she was met with a series of blinks and nothing more.
And yet, there was the Tommy Tiernan in there that has made this show of his such a compelling watch, on many occasions.
Late in the interview, he pulled a thread and started getting into who the woman behind this Becky Lynch character really is. It was brief but it was the best part of their chat. “Did you have struggles as a kid?” Tiernan asked.
“Oh yeah, oh yeah,” Lynch replied. “Because I was a chubby kid, so I was teased a lot and bullied a fair amount.
“And I think there’s that thing in wrestling where you can be whoever you want to be. You have that chance to re-write history a bit, in a little way. Be the person that you want to be. Be that bad-ass. Be that tough cookie.”
Now – and a glint in his eye showed he felt the same thing – Tiernan knew he was on to something. “How would you describe Becky?” he asked, and he did not mean the WWE star.
“Deeply sensitive, a little bit quirky and a little bit of an oddball, at times,” she replied.
Lynch explained she would next be fighting, at a big event, at Wrestlemania in early April. She proudly informed him that it was being held at SoFi Stadium in Los Angeles [capacity for both nights is set to be 80,000] but Tiernan just blinked back. It could be down the road at Páirc Tailteann and he still would not lace his shoes for it.
Tiernan did say, quite earnestly, that he would be tuning in to see Becky Lynch in her next WWE fight, but turned down the invite to see it in person.
“Rebecca Quin, everybody,” the host announced as the Dubliner smiled and waved.
It was Rebecca Quin, but only for a fleeting moment. Seeing more of her would have been an achievement for Tiernan but he was not the first person to get sucked in by trying to decipher the mad world of the WWE.
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