Aleah James is aiming to have fun amidst her return to wrestling scene.
WrestleZone’s Ella Jay spoke with Aleah James about her recent departure from WWE, which came nearly a year after the company announced the disbanding of NXT UK. As James now enters the free agency market, she is excited to showcase herself as a more confident performer. James has not wrestled an official match since March 2022.
When asked what fans can expect from her character and in-ring wise, Aleah James indicated that she was especially looking forward to demonstrating her charisma and her athletic skills.
“Confidence. I want to have fun, I want to have fun matches. I want to display athleticism, want to display charisma, I want people to be entertained,” James said. “And I hope that I’m bringing something to the scene that isn’t there right now because I felt like I did that the first time, so why can’t I do it the second time? I feel like I’ve had enough [time off]. It’s enough of a gap. You’ve missed me enough. I’ll be back.”
Diving deeper into the character aspect, James noted that she feels more mature now. With this growth, James isn’t fixated on other people’s opinions anymore. Her objective is to have fun and live her life, her way.
“I feel older, not in a bad way, but I feel more mature. The things that used to bother me or worry me, don’t worry me anymore,” James said. “I don’t have time to feel scared about things. There is no time to do that, to be tentative or to worry about what other people think about you. And I feel like this gap that I’ve had forced me to learn that. You can’t worry about what people are thinking.”
“Everyone could be thinking X, Y, and Z about me right now, or why I haven’t been around or why I have been doing this. You can sit there and worry about that, but who cares? You just have to go and do what you’ve got to do. Live your life for you, so I have to do that and just have fun with it and having fun ticks all of those boxes. It ticks the box of not being worried about people think or being nervous or being anxious. As long as you have fun with it and don’t treat it like it’s a life-or-death situation, then it’s going to be fine.”
Short-Term & Long-Term Goals
While Aleah James doesn’t have too many tangible goals for her future, she is keen on furthering her wrestling experiences. Short-term wise, James is hoping to elevate her confidence even more, which she believes can be achieved through various learning opportunities.
“My short term is experiences. I try not to give myself like a physical thing to achieve. Sometimes I’m my worst enemy to the point where, if I say I’m going to do something and I don’t achieve that, then I feel like, ‘Oh, you’re a failure,’ or whatever. Just normal people things, so I try to make it like a feeling or ‘I want to achieve confidence in my ability. I want to achieve finishing my match and not beating myself up and thinking, oh, that was really fun. That was great. What did I learn from that?’ That’s what I’m looking to try and achieve short term as well as long term,” James said.
In the long-term, James is also open to signing to with a major promotion again. For right now, though, she intends to go with the flow of her free agency.
“Obviously it would be cool to sign somewhere or to just be based somewhere. But because I wasn’t expecting to be signed the first time around, that worked. That mentality worked for me, just wrestling as many times as I can and trying to get better then led to that opportunity [with WWE],” James recalled. “So, I’m going to apply the same logic and apply the same structure and then hopefully that whatever’s best for me will happen. That’s just kind of the way I see it.”
Training At The D-Von Dudley Academy
In preparation for her in-ring return, Aleah James revealed she had been training the D-Von Dudley Academy in central Florida. There, James has run through some practice matches while also continuing to strengthen her ring cardio.
“I have the confidence to say that I do train hard regularly,” James said. “So to me, it’s not hard for me to get back into the ring. It’s not hard for me to have my cardio in place because that is one thing I maintain. Whether I’ve had a bad day, wherever or wherever, I can’t be asked to do anything, that is a non-negotiable for me. So when it comes to stuff like that, I have 100% faith and confidence in that. That’s not a problem to me.”
Amidst her training, James also noted that she had opportunity to wrestle with the likes of Mercedes Moné and Trinity Fatu.
RELATED: Aleah James Comments On Her WWE Departure, Plans To Join NXT And What’s Next
Watch our full interview with Aleah James below:
