During an interview on a recent episode of Renee Paquette’s “Oral Sessions” podcast, WWE NXT’s Beth Phoenix talked about why she left WWE in 2012. She also said that she’s cleared to wrestle and hinted at wrestling at least one more match. She also talked about Edge’s return to WWE.
Here are some highlights:
Phoenix said the following:
“I felt, and I’ll be transparent on this, I would go on the live events, and I would wrestle my a*s off, 12-15 minute matches, and I felt they were great matches. I felt that way because my peers would say that to me. They said, ‘You guys killed it tonight. Good job.’ I would listen to the audience, and the audience was reacting to us at the live events. Even if I come out to crickets because I had no TV time, once I get the chance to tell the story in the ring for 10 or 15 minutes, by the end, everybody’s excited. I knew that I was doing the job right, and I knew my peers were telling me I was doing the job right, but then I would go to TV and here’s a match that’s supposed to happen, and it’s cut to 30 seconds. I felt like a real dispensable part of the show no matter how long and hard I worked. I felt like even at a point that I got over as a character. I thought I did that part right. I thought I checked every box to be trying to move this thing forward. I felt like I was trying to work with other women as a group to get us all featured more.
I had PPV matches, every PPV for like five years. Then I remember one of those last years. Here I am. I would work or do a tag match on the weekend, and then be taken out of the tag match and somebody else would be plugged in at RAW. It got to the point that I felt so frustrated that I put in all this work, and I didn’t see anything changing in front of me. At that point, I was 31 or 32. I had already wrapped my head around the fact that I bought a house. I set up this really manageable life that would not require me to make a wrestler’s salary to keep the lights on. I was living near my family and friends. I was totally ready to move on because I accomplished all the things I wanted to do.
Even if in the grand scheme if it didn’t matter, and people were like, ‘I don’t even remember you as a wrestler’, I was like, well I remember what I did. I tried really hard. I was ready to move on, and then, I’m in this whole conversation in my head getting ready to leave, and then Adam and I got together. The other layer on that is he was done with wrestling, grieving that, and ready to move on too, so we were like, it’s family time. He had his neck surgery, so we suddenly both ended up sitting on the couch next to each other with all this stuff behind us. We were ready to throw ourselves into parenthood and dive right in. He was doing the acting, but I was like, I’m a stay at home wife for life. I love this. I was so happy.”
Beth commented on Edge returning to WWE:
“The documentary shows a little bit of it. What you see on the screen is 2% of it. It’s been years and years of the work he’s put in, pretty much since 2018, trying to get himself physically and mentally ready to do this. Me as a wife, it has been jarring. It has been difficult because I had for almost 10 years wrapped my head around the fact that if he gets in a car accident, he could die. If he falls the wrong way, he could die. We were told all these things that really made me terrified for Adam to be in a dangerous situation. Even mountain biking, I was nervous and uncomfortable. I love him and I don’t want anything to happen to him. Then when he starts contemplating this wrestling thing, I’m like, ‘Are you nuts? Maybe we should go to a psychiatrist instead of Dr. Maroon.’ He just knew himself, and he knew his body more than I did. I said, ‘There’s two things I need to see before any of this can happen. This is as your wife, and I will be the big heavy on this and say no because we have two kids. I have to see this with my own eyes, number one, and then I have to hear this from the best in the world. I have to hear from our team that you will be ok. I have to see it. I have to see you move around, and I have to see it with my own eyes to be convinced that this is real.’ He did both, so what can I do?”
Beth was asked if she would like to return to the ring and if she’s medically cleared:
“I am (medically cleared). Once a wrestler, always a wrestler. I’m not going to lie about it. I’m good. I feel like you couldn’t have done this and wanted to do this your whole life without always having that little bug. I get so happy to be in the conversation of somebody that today’s stars would look forward to facing. When I left WWE, I felt really insignificant, and I felt like I hadn’t done anything. I felt like I didn’t move the needle, and I felt so sad about that part, but ok to move on. Now I feel that I’m getting this wonderful recognition from today’s women, and it makes me feel so good. As far as coming back to the ring, you never say never. If the right opportunity arose, and I could do business, that’s really all I would really care about. Of course, would I love to have a retirement match, a big farewell, give somebody the high five and pass the torch? Heck yes, but, there’s only a limited amount of people I could do that for, whereas on commentary, I can do that two hours every single week. Every week I can tell you how awesome Indie Hartwell is, and tell you ‘Look at Shotzie Blackheart’s improvements.’ I can help all the talents weekly on commentary. In that respect, I love commentary because I feel like I’m contributing in a positive way, but the in-ring stuff, I don’t know what the future brings. I don’t write off anything. I don’t close any doors. If there was ever something WWE is interested in doing, I would love to say goodbye, high five somebody, and give them an endorsement from a Hall of Famer.”
Beth was asked who she would like to face:
“I have a feeling there is somebody that will end up across the ring from me at some point. I don’t want to give any clues on that, but I don’t think that Beth Phoenix is done lacing up the boots forever.”
If you use any portion of the quotes from this article please credit “Oral Sessions with Renée Paquette “ with a h/t to WrestlingNews.co for the transcription.
