Appearing on The Ariel Helwani Show Wednesday (Aug. 13), Shayna Baszler talked a little about the end of her WWE run and what’s next for her career.
Regarding her exit from WWE a couple weeks after WrestleMania 41, Baszler confirmed that she was released. The company has increasingly let contracts expire rather than end them early, but Shayna said:
“I was released. I had, not too long ago, signed an extension. I wish it would have ran out, but I was released. had three years left on her deal at the
time… I had like three more years”
Asked about her reaction to the cut, the mixed martial artist and wrestler said she wasn’t shocked. She and teammate Zoey Stark weren’t getting booked by WWE after their other partner, Sonya Deville, left when her contract wasn’t renewed back in February.
“It’s kind of funny because it’s never a good feeling, but it was not unexpected. As far as Zoey and I, and with Sonya being released — they didn’t renew her contract. From that time, Zoey and I just weren’t on TV.
”You kind of get this feeling… we were trying to pitch stories and ideas and doing our own stuff on social media and that sort of thing. Nothing was hitting with creative. It’s a bummer in that moment, but I kind of knew where we were at.”
Baszler again explained why a report came out that she was producing at NXT, then Helwani asked if the two-time NXT Women’s champ has had talks with other promotions. She replied:
“There have been talks. There are some indie companies that, at the time I signed with WWE — it was for the Mae Young Classic [in 2017]. We did the Mae Young Classic and I hadn’t officially signed on full-time yet. The discussion or understanding at that time was, ‘Just sign and when you need to drop all those titles on the indies, we’ll let you go back and take care of those.’ That never came to fruition and these companies have reached out and been like, ‘Hey, remember that title?’ There have been some talks.
”Obviously, it’s not a secret, I’m really good friends with Marina [Shafir], I have a lot of good friends there [at AEW]. So there’s been some discussion as to what the future could hold, for sure.”
Following up and specifically asking if the 45-year-old would join AEW, Baszler added:
“I’ve said almost exactly this statement when people were talking about UFC to WWE transition, I don’t care as much about the letters behind it. I just want to practice my craft and if I can do that alongside my friends, that’s always a great place to be. I’m not going to say a hard no to any of that.”
Watch Baszler & Helwani’s entire conversation here.
