Saraya‘s return to professional wrestling wasn’t as easy of an experience for her as others have had prior.
All Elite Wrestling‘s Saraya was a recent guest on The Corner to discuss a wide variety of subjects. When asked about the idea that wrestling is just like riding a bike, Saraya admitted it wasn’t anything like that for her.
“No, no for me,” Saraya said. “When I spoke to people, they were like, ‘Oh, it’s like riding a bike; you’ll be fine. You’ll jump straight back in, and you’ll start swimming.’ And I was just like, no, that was not how it felt for me. It felt f**king awful.
“Like, at one point three weeks in, I was like, did I make a mistake? This is awful. Because people — Wrestling Twitter especially has just got so toxic since I’ve been away, and going to AEW after being in WWE and like the tribalism and one of the things I regret saying is in the promo, finally a boss that listens to me. I’m just like, oh, gosh, I wish I didn’t say that because it caused a little bit more tribalism and a lot more people to have a reason to talk shit.
“So yeah, I just didn’t feel comfortable in my first promo that I did, I feel like I shit the bed with that and I was just like, oh no, I made a mistake. I’m not ready; this is awful. And I spoke to my boyfriend all the time and he was just like, ‘You’re gonna be fine. Just keep getting the repetitions in.’ And he was really encouraging like that. My family was very encouraging. So it was really good the community that I had around me and everyone’s very supportive, but he was like you’ll be fine. You’ve got this every single week.
“Once I got that out of the way now, I feel really comfortable now. I’m just like, no one’s gonna stop me. I don’t care if you talking shit about me. I f**king love what I do. I’m freaking good at it. I’m good at talking shit. I don’t have to wrestle all the time because I’m now putting myself first rather than everybody else. Like before the fans, before wrestlers, before anything, I’m putting myself first.
“There’s just no way that I’m going to do what I did before after my first next neck surgery that I had where I was wrestling Friday, Saturday, Sunday, Monday, Tuesday, consistently traveling and stuff like that and doing crazy bumps and I’m just like, I refuse to do that. I’m gonna take my time, and I don’t care if it pisses people off. I’m putting myself first.”
READ MORE: Saraya On Potential ‘Fighting With My Family’ Sequel: We Need Another One
What do you make of Saraya’s comments? Do you think she’s found her groove as of late in All Elite Wrestling? Let us know your thoughts by sounding off in the comments section below.
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