Saraya discussed her decision to sign with AEW during a live stream that she hosted on Twitch.
“When I spoke to Tony (Khan) he was so great about it. He said, ‘You can still do your Twitch.’ The thing that got me was freedom. I just wanted to have the freedom to go do whatever I wanted.”
“I love WWE, I just like the opportunities I’m getting with AEW. The one thing I don’t like is, ‘WWE got you that movie.’ No they didn’t. You know who got me that movie? The Rock. He made that happen. He asked WWE, ‘You can be part of this, but I’m doing this anyway,’ and WWE decided they could make money off of it and put their names on it. The Rock should get all the credit. Without him, there would be no movie. WWE were wonderful, they gave me a lot of opportunities, and I am forever grateful for that. The only downside that made me pick AEW from WWE is I don’t like sitting on my butt and not knowing what I’m doing or if I’m allowed to do certain things. I’m pro-WWE, but I love AEW and I wanted something new and I wanted freedom. That was very important.”
Saraya also revealed when she signed:
“It was like two weeks before because (Chris) Jericho, (Jon) Moxley, and Tony (Khan) were all like, ‘it would be good if you were on Grand Slam in two weeks.’ That’s when it all started. Everything was good, literally until it….I signed literally the day. It was the craziest two weeks.”
(h/t to Jeremy Lambert for transcription)