The Bella Twins
The Bella Twins are a professional wrestling tag team consisting of identical twin sisters Brie Bella and Nikki Bella. They are best known for their tenure in WWE, where they are former WWE Divas Champions. Brie is the first twin to win the championship, while Nikki won it twice with her second reign of 301 days being the longest reign for the now defunct championship.
The Bella Twins signed with WWE in 2007 and were assigned to the developmental territory, Florida Championship Wrestling. Brie was called up to the main roster in 2008. In early appearances, she surreptitiously switched places with her sister to win her matches. After some weeks, Nikki was revealed as her twin. During the next few years, they worked together as a tag team, as well as individually. Each sister won the WWE Divas Championship once before they were released in 2012. They made their return in 2013 and were featured in the reality show Total Divas before getting their own spin-off, Total Bellas. They were inducted into the WWE Hall of Fame in 2021 as a team. The twins would only make occasional appearances in WWE in their last few years, but acted as ambassadors for the company until their contracts expired in 2023. Following this, they retired the "Bella" name and reintroduced themselves as The Garcia Twins as "Garcia" was their maiden name. However, the Bella name was revived with Nikki's return to WWE in 2025.
Early lives and careers
Brianna Monique Garcia-Colace and Stephanie Nicole Garcia-Colace were born sixteen minutes apart on November 21, 1983, in Brawley, California and raised on a farm in the outskirts of Scottsdale, Arizona. They are of Mexican and Italian descent and played soccer in their youth. The twins graduated from Chaparral High School in 2002. They returned to San Diego for college, where Nicole continued playing soccer for Grossmont College, with both twins also working at Hooters. A year later, the twins relocated to Los Angeles in pursuit of acting and modeling opportunities, making ends meet doing various gigs from marketing for a now defunct record label, to cocktail waitressing at the Mondrian Hotel.They then made their first national TV appearance on the Fox reality show Meet My Folks. Following this appearance, the twins were hired to be the World Cup Twins for Budweiser and were photographed holding the World Cup trophy. They were contestants in the 2006 "International Body Doubles twins search". They participated in the 2006 WWE Diva Search, but did not make the cut.
Professional wrestling career
World Wrestling Entertainment/WWE
Florida Championship Wrestling (2007–2008)
The Bella Twins were signed to developmental contracts by World Wrestling Entertainment in June 2007 and were assigned to Florida Championship Wrestling, WWE's then-developmental territory, in Tampa, Florida. On September 14, the twins made their in-ring debut defeating Nattie Neidhart and Krissy Vaine with Victoria Crawford as the special guest referee. As a part of their on-screen personas, they switched places behind the referee's back if one of them was hurt. This was called "Twin Magic". They also occasionally competed in mixed tag team matches, teaming with male wrestlers including Kofi Kingston and Robert Anthony. They also made some non-wrestling appearances on Heath Miller's Happy Hour promo segment.Starting in December 2007, they managed Derrick Linkin, but this storyline was cut short when Linkin was released in January 2008. They then resumed their feud with Neidhart and Crawford, wrestling them throughout much of 2008. In FCW, the twins competed in bikini contests and wrestled against Katie Lea Burchill, Milena Roucka, and Nattie Neidhart. Their last FCW appearance was on September 2, when they competed in a Divas battle royal won by Miss Angela.
Various storylines (2008–2011)
On the August 29 episode of SmackDown, Brianna debuted as Brie Bella and defeated Victoria. She had a series of matches with Victoria and Victoria's accomplice Natalya. In each match, Brie would roll out of the ring, slip underneath it, and emerge surprisingly revived to win the match. On the November 7 episode of SmackDown, Brie picked up a win against Victoria and then ran under the ring to escape Natalya and Victoria, but Victoria and Natalya both reached for Brie under the ring, resulting in both Nicole and Brie being pulled out. Nicole was then introduced as Nikki Bella. The twins had their first official match as a team on the November 21 episode of SmackDown, defeating Victoria and Natalya. They continued competing in tag team matches over the following months.File:Bella Twins.jpg|thumb|upright|Nikki and Brie during a Raw event in 2009
Starting in November, the twins developed an on-screen relationship with The Colóns. In February 2009, the storyline expanded to include John Morrison and The Miz, who flirted with the Bellas and took them on a date for Valentine's Day. The date provoked a rivalry between the teams of The Miz and Morrison and Primo and Carlito, with the four competing for the affection of the twins, who were seemingly unable to choose between them. On March 17 on ECW, Carlito and Primo, aiming for Morrison and The Miz, accidentally spat apples in the face of Brie. Nikki began to laugh at Brie's misfortune, and a fight broke out between the two, which led to Nikki leaving with The Miz and Morrison while Brie stayed with Primo and Carlito. Brie won her first match over Nikki in a six-person intergender tag team match on SmackDown the following week. On ECW on March 31, Nikki pinned Brie in their first singles match against each other after a distraction from Morrison and The Miz.
On April 15, The Bella Twins were both drafted to the Raw brand as part of the 2009 supplemental draft. On April 27, Brie made her Raw in-ring debut in an eight-Diva tag team match, which her team won. Nikki also made an appearance, reuniting with her twin, as she was under the ring to help Brie during the match. Nikki then made her in-ring debut for the brand the following month in a battle royal, but was eliminated by Beth Phoenix. On June 29, they were both traded to the ECW brand. They debuted on ECW the following night on The Abraham Washington Show, as the special guests. They quickly developed a storyline feud with Katie Lea Burchill, when Nikki defeated her in a match by switching places with Brie behind the referee's back. The following week on Superstars, Brie defeated Burchill after a similar fashion, and the feud ended in September, when Nikki defeated Burchill on Superstars.
File:Eve Torres Also great.jpg|thumb|left|The Bella Twins with Eve Torres at the 2010 Royal Rumble
On October 12, the Bellas were traded back to Raw as part of a tri-branded Divas trade, where they predominately appeared in backstages segments with the weekly guest stars and only occasionally competed in matches. In June 2010, they developed a feud with Jillian Hall, when Brie defeated her after switching places with Nikki. The following week, Nikki defeated Hall after switching with Brie. The feud was exacerbated when the Bellas acted as the special guest referees during one of Hall's matches. During the match, Hall attacked both twins, but lost the match when Nikki made a fast count, allowing her to be pinned by Gail Kim. The next week on Superstars, the twins defeated Hall and Maryse in a tag team match to end the storyline. On August 31, The Bella Twins announced they would be part of the all-female third season of NXT, mentoring Jamie. Jamie was the first rookie Diva eliminated on the October 5 episode of NXT. In November, the twins began a storyline with Daniel Bryan, when Brie accompanied him to the ring for his match. Following his win, Nikki ran out and the two fought over Bryan's affection, until Bryan broke it up and had them hug each other. They began to manage Bryan and frequently accompanied him to the ring over the next two months. In January 2011, they discovered Bryan kissing Gail Kim backstage and assaulted her. They continued to attack Kim, both at the Royal Rumble on January 30 and the following night on Raw. On February 7, they teamed with Melina in a losing effort to Kim, Eve Torres and Tamina.
Divas Champions (2011–2012)
The Bellas began feuding with Eve Torres after they appeared as lumberjills during a Divas Championship match between Torres and Natalya on the February 14 episode of Raw. Following the match, they attacked Torres backstage before Gail Kim and Natalya stopped them. The next week on Raw, the twins defeated Torres and Kim in a tag team match. The following week on Raw, Nikki won a battle royal to become the number one contender for the Divas Championship and unsuccessfully challenged Torres for the championship on March 7.On April 11, Brie defeated Torres to win the Divas Championship, marking the first time either twin had held a championship in WWE. On May 22, Brie went on to successfully defend the championship against Kelly Kelly at Over the Limit after switching places with Nikki. On a special "Power to the People" episode of Raw on June 20, Brie defended her WWE Divas Championship against Kelly, losing the title and ending her reign at 70 days. On July 17, Brie challenged Kelly for the championship in a rematch at Money in the Bank on July 17, but she failed to win.
The Bellas began to show friction in March 2012 after both twins lost to AJ Lee in singles competition. After Brie's match with Lee, Nikki revealed that Brie was rooting for Team Johnny in the 12-man tag team match at WrestleMania XXVIII on April 1 whilst Nikki was rooting for Team Teddy, thus furthering their dissension.
On the April 6 episode of SmackDown, Nikki defeated the Divas Champion Beth Phoenix in a non-title match after Kelly Kelly distracted Phoenix. On April 23, Nikki defeated Phoenix in a lumberjill match on Raw to win the Divas Championship for the first time. Brie lost Nikki's championship to Layla at Extreme Rules on April 29 after Twin Magic failed, ending her Divas Championship reign after only a week. The following night on Raw, they competed in their last match with the WWE, failing to win back the Divas Championship from Layla in a triple threat match. Later that night, WWE announced on their website that the twins had been fired by Executive Administrator Eve Torres.