WWE star was ‘incredibly sick’ with mystery illness months before shock axe
The 30-year-old star opens up in her first interview since leaving WWE.
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Previous Page Next PageIt’s been a rollercoaster for Newell, who has suffered injury setbacks and even another WWE exit during previous roster cuts in 2021, before Triple H brought her back.
‘I text him and asked if I could just hop on a call with him just to ask some legal advice with green card stuff,’ she recalled. ‘And then by the end the conversation, “Okay, cool, so do you want to come back to work?”‘
Unfortunately, she struggled for momentum and TV time, despite pitching everything from an NXT return to new characters ‘multiple times a week’ aschanged her hair, got new gear and pushed for a heel turn.
She was keen to embrace her football past with a hooligan-style persona, trying to ‘change everything’ about her presentation to move away from being a ‘stereotypical babyface’.
Newell was desperate to change her character over the years (Picture: WWE) The Girl With The Shiniest Wizard wanted to move away from the babyface role (Picture: WWE/David Gunn) She embraced a more violent side in the past (Picture: WWE)‘Let me go a complete opposite. Stomp on people’s skulls, like football hooligans do, headbutt people – I brought in the Zidane headbutt as part of my move set,’ she revealed as she delved into the Green Street-inspired character.
There have been fun moments for Newell in between, including her feud and team with Dakota Kai (‘she’s so easy to work with’) and partnerships with Shotzi and Natalya.
Although she tried to turn heel for ‘six years’, she saw the creative team keep going back to vignettes and commentary playing off her unfortunate knee injuries.
The first came before the 2017 Mae Young Classic, while she suffered a separate injury in the following year’s tournament during her quarter-final match against Rhea Ripley.
Newell battled Rhea Ripley in the 2018 Mae Young Classic (Picture: WWE) She received vile remarks on social media after getting injured in the match (Picture: WWE)That setback sparked ‘death and injury wishes’ from vile trolls, which Newell still receives ‘even to this day’, including one disgusting message which read: ‘It’s a shame your knee broke, it should have been your neck.’
She was in an ‘incredibly dark place’, adding: ‘I gained a lot of weight because I was just drinking, I was so depressed.’
Newell even considered retiring before Sara Amato helped turn things around, even after the heartbreak of a third injury.
‘What a lot of people either don’t realise or don’t want to hear, is that the third injury wasn’t like, it didn’t happen in the ring,’ she fired back at ‘injury prone’ critics.
She came back stronger but didn’t manage to sustain the momentum on screen (Picture: WWE) Newell is giving herself a two year period to decide her own wrestling future (Picture: WWE)‘It wasn’t like, “Oh, she’s wrestling on torn knees’. No, something had happened during rehab, when the ACL graft slipped out. It was as simple as that. And I wrestled without an ACL for close to a year.’
Now, Newell has been training with the likes of WWE star Pete Dunne for her comeback, while Piper Niven, Sheamus, Drew McIntyre, Damian Priest, William Regal and Chelsea Green have all been on hand for advice.
Despite feeling inspired by her upcoming return to ATTACK!, she’s ‘lost a lot of love for wrestling’ over the past year or so, and if that fire isn’t reignited in the next two years, she’ll hang up her boots.
‘I’m giving myself two years to either find the love, find myself, or just call it a day,’ she said. ‘Mid 2027, just before my 33rd birthday.’
She added: ‘That’s a decent amount of time to be able to find myself and be like, “Okay, is it time to retire? Or do I have a little while left?” I think that’s what’s driving me right now, the thought of finding myself and trying to find this happiness again.’
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