Shotzi Blackheart says she asked WWE to let her wrestle in TNA while she was still under contract, but was not allowed to.
Blackheart told the Generation Of Wrestling Podcast that she made the request after returning from ACL surgery.
“I was trying, I was kind of talking to TNA when I was still signed with WWE. When I had just gotten back from my ACL surgery, I was really hungry to get in the ring and I was begging WWE to let me have a run with TNA,” Blackheart said. “I was talking to Tommy Dreamer for a little bit and he was totally down, but for some reason I wasn’t allowed to.”
“And then when I got released, I needed a second to be on the indies and do me before signing another big contract,” she continued.
Blackheart signed with TNA this month and said she is arriving with more confidence than ever.
“After a year and a half of just doing me and gaining my confidence back, I felt like, ‘Okay, this is time for me to get back on TV, come to TNA on absolute fire,'” she said. “So, I’m really coming to TNA fired up.”
Shotzi Blackheart on her ACL recovery
Blackheart tore her ACL in a match against Lyra Valkyria at an NXT taping. She said the mental side of the recovery was harder than the physical side.
“It’s almost more grueling mentally than physically, showing up to PT and doing the workouts that you’re told to do is the easy part, right? But the mental part of the pain and the struggle to walk and the struggle of knowing whether or not you’re going to be able to come back to doing the thing that you love is so so hard,” Blackheart said.
She said spending time with friends, finding her support system, getting out in nature and writing helped her through it.
“I did a lot of writing while I was recovering from my ACL surgery and just reconnecting with all the things that you love,” she said.
Blackheart has made a full recovery and has been wrestling since her return in 2024.
She left WWE in May 2025 when her contract expired, and has since worked for GCW, MLW and other independent promotions. She held the MLW Women’s World Featherweight Championship for more than 200 days. TNA announced her signing on October 19. She previously wrestled for the company in 2018 and 2019, when it was known as IMPACT Wrestling.
