Elayna Black wasn’t interested in starting a bidding war after WWE fired her. The former Cora Jade says she couldn’t have cared less which wrestling company offered the biggest paycheck — because after everything she’d been through, signing with the wrong promotion could have sent her right back into the mental health struggles she was desperately trying to escape.
In a documentary published on TNA Wrestling’s YouTube channel, Black explained that her decision to return to wrestling came with one major condition. Wherever she ended up, she needed to be somewhere that wasn’t going to make her mental health worse. Another big contract wasn’t worth putting herself through the same misery again.
“Being in the mental state that I was in and kind of just realizing everything I had been through for the last 2 years, I knew that I wanted to end up somewhere that wasn’t going to make my mental health any worse.”
And when it came to money, Black wasn’t remotely subtle. She made it clear that financial offers weren’t going to dictate her next move, even after losing the WWE job she’d spent her childhood dreaming about.
“I didn’t care about the money. I didn’t care about who was going to pay me the most. I did not care about any of that. I just wanted to love wrestling again.”
This wasn’t the first time Black addressed her decision to join TNA. As Ringside News previously covered in March 2026, she explained that TNA’s creative freedom, backstage environment, and willingness to listen to her ideas helped seal the deal. She also admitted that immediately after WWE released her, she wasn’t even interested in signing somewhere else.
But her latest comments make the stakes of that decision much clearer. Black wasn’t simply looking for more creative control or better opportunities on television. She was trying to avoid putting herself back into an environment that could wreck her emotionally.
Black had already stepped away from professional wrestling in July 2025, after reaching a point where the business wasn’t making her happy anymore. She later returned on TNA’s January 15, 2026, AMC debut, before officially announcing her signing on January 28.
The former WWE star explained that landing in TNA finally gave her a feeling she hadn’t experienced in a long time. Instead of questioning whether she belonged in wrestling anymore, she felt like she’d found the right place to start over.
“For the first time in a long time, I felt like this is where I’m supposed to be, which took a long f** time to get here, but here we are.”*
Black’s comments also put a different spin on the usual conversation about wrestlers jumping companies for better contracts. She had already lived out her dream of making it to WWE, only to reach a point where she was questioning whether she wanted to wrestle at all. Whatever another promotion might have been willing to pay, she wasn’t interested in sacrificing her mental health to find out.
Black now has a spot in TNA’s Knockouts division and another opportunity to build the wrestling career she once feared she’d lost. Whether that leads to championship gold remains to be seen, but she’s making one thing clear — getting her love for wrestling back mattered more than getting the biggest check.
What do you think about Elayna Black putting her mental health ahead of money when deciding to sign with TNA? Would she have been better off exploring other promotions, or did she make the right call? Drop your thoughts in the comments below.
This transcript was produced exclusively for Ringside News from the original recording. Republishing the transcription in full is prohibited. When using excerpts, provide prominent credit and a link to this article.
