Paige says goodbye to the WWE and shares a story of the new interim CEO helping qualm her nerves.
Paige is leaving the WWE tomorrow as her contract with the company expires. Paige has not been an active member of the roster for a while now following her retirement from the ring due to injuries she sustained in the ring. While she does not want to leave the company, WWE have decided not to re-sign her, which means she will be a free agent from tomorrow.
Paige penned a touching goodbye letter to the WWE in The Players Tribune and in the closing paragraphs shared a story about Stephanie McMahon calming her nerves before her 2017 return.
I’ll leave on a quick story. Before I came back from my injury in 2017, I probably had the craziest case of anxiety I’ve ever had. I just kept thinking to myself, like, These people are all going to hate me now. With things having spiraled so out of control (and in such a public way) in my personal life, I had doubts about whether I still belonged, and about whether that connection I’d made with the fans had permanently been lost.
And I’ll never forget this: As I was getting ready to go out there for my “re-debut,” Stephanie pulled me aside. And she just held me for a minute. She gave me the biggest, longest hug. And she said, “Hey — everyone out there loves you. They’re going to be excited to see you. You want to know why? Because you’re a survivor. You SURVIVED. And that means something. So hold your head up, and enjoy this moment. It’s yours.”
Stephanie was right (as usual). I went out there … and it was the most amazing feeling. No one hated me!! They were actually glad I was back. I was still Paige. The connection was still there.
And in a lot of ways, that story is my time with WWE in a nutshell. It was far from perfect. There were some brutal setbacks. And to be honest, I was a bit of an ass for a couple of years. But they always believed in my will to survive, and in the person I could grow to become.
Paige in The Players Tribune
Paige returned to the WWE in November of 2017 after some time on the shelf with aforementioned injuries and the return would not last long, as she would retire from the ring shortly after.
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