Saraya values her creative freedom.
“The Glampire” previously announced her retirement from in-ring competition in April 2018. She then assumed a few non-wrestling related roles in WWE, including a brief stint as SmackDown General Manager, and manager for the Kabuki Warriors. In July 2022, Saraya’s contract with WWE officially ended, but she wanted more. Subsequently, she began discussions to propel a possible return to the professional wrestling world.
Though discussions with Chief Content Officer of WWE Triple H initiated, nothing “definitive” ever emerged. Meanwhile, Saraya also spoke with All Elite Wrestling President Tony Khan. There, the two sides reached an agreement, officially Saraya to a contract with the company. In a recent appearance on The Sessions With Renee Paquette, Saraya revealed what primarily convinced her to join AEW.
“The thing that swayed me [to sign with AEW] was AEW is a new fresh company, and I’m like, ‘Oh, I could probably benefit from being thrown into a new mix.’ Tony just offered me so much freedom [for outside projects],” she said. “He was like, ‘let’s do this, let’s do this. Then outside of it, you can do whatever you want’. He was just like ‘I won’t ask for a percentage of this. Just as long as you come to work, I’m happy’. I was just like, ‘Man, that’s really f**ing cool.'”
Saraya continued to note her ventures into Twitch while she remained away from the ring, still under contract with WWE. Eventually, the opportunity for outside projects were taken away from her, and several talent at the time. “So I was a little flustered with that because I was just like, ‘well, if they don’t let me do whatever I want and then I get stuck sitting at home again, not doing anything’. And I’m like, I’m 30 [years old] now. I want to start building a career outside of wrestling,” she said. “I can’t just sit around and do nothing like I did for a couple of years, I cannot do that again. It was depressing at times. I felt like I was f***ing loser.”
“Poor Ronnie (her boyfriend). There’d be days where I was just so down. He was like, ‘are you okay?’ and then he would offer me being in his music video to make me feel like I was doing something or he would want to keep doing all these things. He was always motivating me. But I was just like, ‘I just feel like I shouldn’t have to rely on you to give me something. My work should be helping me with that stuff, giving me this even media stuff and doing all these other things like I can be a tool somewhere.'”
The former Divas Champion further explained her frustration as she “sat around” with no window to take on new creative opportunities. “I’ve always been busy from when I was 13 years old and I wanted to get into wrestling and my family’s business and stuff like that. I was always 100% in everything that I did. I would send out resumes to different companies, got turned down because I was female. It was always there, there was always a mountain to climb. I was [also] always so busy and I was always working somewhere. Every week my dad would be like, ‘where are you this week? I’d be like, ‘Oh, I’m going to Spain or I’m going to Turkey.'”
“I was just always so busy, nonstop since I was 13 years old. Then for that come to a complete halt, I was just like, ‘I can’t sit around and do nothing.’ That’s not in me. I want[ed] to do stuff like, it’s not as if I want[ed] to sit around and just grab a paycheck. I was like, ‘I feel like a f***ing bum, you know?'”
“Just having the opportunity to be able to go out now [in AEW] and do whatever I want, whenever I want, you know? If it’s like televised things, I would obviously I would go to Tony [Khan] and be like, ‘hey, this is what I’m going to do and this is what we’re going to be talking about,’ so he can give the all clear for it. He’s not going to tell me no. But obviously, they would want, as a business, they want to know the details of what’s going on. They’re just so giving, and that’s the thing that kind of persuaded me.”
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