Saraya, formerly known as Paige in WWE, has rediscovered her love of wrestling after being medically cleared to return to the ring last year, shortly after making her AEW debut.
The former WWE star had been sidelined for years due to her lack of medical clearance from WWE’s doctors due to spinal stenosis. Saraya had pushed several times to become a manager, ambassador, or GM for the company. However, because she was not cleared to wrestle for the majority of her time, the company didn’t do much with her.
After her WWE departure, which the company decided to do because they did not renew her contract under the Vince McMahon regime, it was reported that Triple tried to sign her before her contract expired.
Saraya was offered the General Manager position a month before her contract was not renewed, a position she previously held on SmackDown. WWE executives were willing to see if a doctor could medically clear her to return to the ring and wrestle.
Saraya stated on The Mark Hoke Show that she was unhappy at the end of her WWE career because they weren’t using her.
“It’s not replaceable though. The feeling that you get from something you love is just not replaceable. You can’t just fill it with something else. I was doing Twitch but I was also being held back so much when I was in the WWE because they just didn’t give me the freedom to do what I wanted to do, to even try and find something else that could potentially fill that void and then also, they didn’t want me doing media, they didn’t want me to do anything so I was sitting on my ass for a couple years and people thought I enjoyed that. No, I hated that. I was miserable, it made me very depressed. Not to the point where I started doing drugs and drinking again because I was a lot smarter by that point but it would make me so miserable, like not being able to do anything.”
You can check out the complete interview below:
(H/T to POST Wrestling for the transcription)
