For years, Tessa Blanchard has been accused of refusing to lose the TNA World Championship. Now she’s saying almost everything fans think they know about her first TNA exit is wrong.
Speaking on WrestleMagicPod, Blanchard claimed the story that followed her departure snowballed into something completely different from what actually happened, arguing that cancel culture only made it easier for people to believe the worst.
“So, I remember them wanting to res— I think I was, because there’s just so many stories out there that just come out of left field. I’m like, ‘Yes, there are. There’s so many stories where I’m like, this is so…’ And then people will read something, and then they’ll believe it, and it’s like, ‘Well, that’s not right. That’s not how that happened.'”
According to Blanchard, her original TNA contract was due to expire on June 30 even though she was scheduled to lose the TNA World Championship at Slammiversary in mid-July. While TNA wanted to keep her around with a new three-year contract, she had already decided she wanted to explore other opportunities.
“My contract was up June 30th, and I think I was set to lose the World Championship at Slammiversary… But my contract was ending, so we were in talks to renew my contract. They offered me a new three-year contract, and I was pretty set on, ‘I want to see what else is out there.'”
According to Blanchard, that never meant she planned to keep the championship. She says both sides had already agreed she would sign a short extension, wrestle at Slammiversary and drop the title once the money she was still owed under her existing deal had been sorted out.
“I was set to sign an extension to lose the title… But I still hadn’t been paid during my whole contract yet.”
She also said TNA was going through major changes behind the scenes, with people leaving and others coming in, which she believes caused several issues to fall through the cracks. Blanchard says the agreement between both sides was simple.
“There were a lot of crazy things going on. Some people had left the team, and then new people got hired. So there were a lot of things that kind of slipped through the cracks at this time…I remember the conversation being, ‘Hey, let’s close out this contract, and then I’ll sign the extension.’ And they were like, ‘Yeah, no problem.'”
That’s why she says she was shocked when the narrative surrounding her exit took on a life of its own. She even pointed to one detail she believes proves that version of events couldn’t have been accurate.
“There are stories like, ‘Tessa held up the title. Tessa didn’t want to lose the title.’ That was never the case. When the story broke that Tessa wouldn’t return the World Championship, the championship was already with Josh Matthews at the time. So many stories got twisted into what they weren’t.”
Then came what she considers the biggest surprise of all. Rather than receiving a phone call from TNA, Blanchard says she discovered she was finished with the company by reading about it online just two days before her contract expired.
“I remember it was like two days before my contract expired, I read on a dirt sheet that I had been let go from TNA. No one called me. No one told me anything. I just read it online.”
Looking back, Blanchard believes the timing couldn’t have been worse. With cancel culture dominating the conversation at the time, she feels the accusations against her spread quickly, creating a narrative that was accepted as fact before she ever had the chance to tell her side.
“With the way the social climate was happening, the way cancel culture was going on, it definitely worked out in their benefit because it helped feed a narrative that was going on, and it all got twisted into something that it really wasn’t.”
Blanchard can’t change how her first TNA exit was remembered. But years later, she’s finally putting her version of events on the record—making it clear she never refused to lose the World Championship, never held the title hostage, and that the story surrounding her departure spiraled into something she says simply wasn’t true.
Do you believe Tessa Blanchard’s side of the story regarding her first TNA departure? Let us know in the comments below.
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