Over the last few years a number of wrestlers have parted ways with WWE and joined AEW. Saraya not only joined the company last year, but has also since come out of retirement and returned to the ring after being told that she would never wrestle again.
During a recent interview with Inside The Ropes, Saraya talked a little bit about her WWE departure and the former WWE Divas Champion explained that she felt like she parted ways with the company on good terms.
“I was sitting on my a** for a couple of years, which was the most frustrating thing ever. I wanted to do media, I want to go there and do stuff, but I couldn’t. And plus there was a pandemic, so they really didn’t have that much use for me since I wasn’t wrestling. They were like, ‘What are you gonna do? We could always do Zooms and all this kind of fun stuff.’
Anyway, after a while I got the call from John Laurinaitis, and he was just like, ‘We’re not gonna renew your contract.’ And I was like, ‘That’s totally fine. You know, I don’t wrestle anymore, I don’t know what you would have [done with me].’ And that’s, that’s perfectly fine. We left on really good terms, which I appreciate from Vince [McMahon] and Johnny.”
Saraya then went on to say that Triple H contacted her after taking over WWE creative and that’s when he found out that the decision was made to not renew her contract.
“Then a month down the line, Vince and Johnny took a little hiatus and then Triple H came in and kind of took over and he had no idea that they didn’t renew my contract, he had no idea. He just called me and was just like, ‘So what was the deal? Did you just want to leave?’ And I was just like, ‘Well, it wasn’t that, it was just I wasn’t of use, I guess anymore, and that was on their side.’
I had that conversation with Hunter and he was really, really great. And he was like, you know, if you want to come back the doors open, you know, and it’s, he was really, really gracious and kind and he always has been.”
