Chelsea Green was expecting a very different phone call from WWE.
On April 15, Chelsea Green was released by WWE after nearly three years with the company. Speaking with Fightful's Sean Ross Sapp, Green said that the news came as a surprise to her. Luckily, she was forewarned by someone else, so she did have time to mentally prepare. She's thankful for receiving that text because had it not come, she would have assumed the phone call was to inform her of (re)debut on the main roster.
"I actually was totally shocked," said Green. "Not going to lie, I was totally shocked. I understand it. I wasn’t used and of course when I was used then I broke my arm. So I was definitely shocked, and in previous years when they have done the releases I was expecting it more throughout those releases. I was kind of ready last year and times before, but this time I was very shocked because I know my potential in the company and I know what I bring to the table, which is something different; character work and acting skills and promo abilities and that’s something that I know I will thrive at when I’m able to show that. So yeah, I was totally shocked. Thankfully I was given a little bit of a heads up, a little warning, ‘Hey they are cutting people,’ so I was able to mentally prepare myself just in case because I will say, if I hadn't have got that text letting me know, I would have thought that that phone call was for my debut and that would have been embarrassing. I am so thankful that I was forewarned because, wow, I was ready to debut, you know?"
Green confirmed that "budget cuts" were the reason given for her release. That said, she says that John Laurinaitis was "very, very sweet" to her when he called. The two have known each other since before WWE because of Green's close relationship with the Bella Twins (Laurinaitis is married to their mother). Last month it was reported that he had been promoted to Head of Talent Relations. Chelsea is glad to have gotten the call from him and sympathizes with the fact that it's probably a difficult thing to do over and over again.
Like everyone else, Green was told that WWE is a revolving door and that a future return is not out of the question. That said, she doesn't plan on sitting around and waiting. She said the following:
"They kind of say the same thing every time, which is that WWE is a revolving door and we've seen that happen, especially when we saw Jinder come back, and people like that, and become the champ. I know that that's a possibility. I know that that sentence is true. With that being said, you can't sit around and wait and I'm just not that type of person to sit around and wait. I never have been. I think that's why I've done well in wrestling. I always left the party before the party was over. Even though I didn't leave the party this time, I got kicked out, the party still is going. I can still come back and the party's still going to be going."
As for her interactions with the big boss, Vince McMahon, Green revealed that on two separate occasions she waited weeks to have a meeting with him. When their one sitdown did happen, however, Vince spent a half-hour listening to all of her character ideas and provided feedback. Her is what happened:
"I think I sat outside Vince’s office for 4 weeks. At that point, we were going to debut -- I was going to debut as a trios. So we had moved on, Mickie [James] storyline is out, trio idea is in. It was going to be sexy, Pussycat Dolls meets Charlie's Angels -- whatever it was. We hadn’t gone too far down the rabbit hole of thinking what that idea was going to be. But we were going to debut in a trio; myself, Danielle Kamela [Vanessa Borne] and Santana Garrett. I loved that idea. I think I'm going to say that about every idea because once I hear an idea, I get invested and I think of all the things that can come from it. So I loved it because I have a history with Danielle. We tried out for Tough Enough together. We were both alternates together so we did have a lot of time alone. Then, of course, Santana is one of my best friends. We travelled the world together. We were a tag team. I know how she works. So I knew that we were going to be able to make that work. I sat outside Vince's office with them for a couple weeks and then on my own for a couple weeks. That idea ended up -- I was able to meet with a couple writers but I never got to meet with Vince for that four weeks of waiting. Which again, COVID, obviously, that's totally fine.
Then once that idea was done and there was no ideas, I went again and waited for three weeks, and then I think on the third or fourth week he ended up being able to see me, which was the best thing ever for my career. He sat down and we probably had a 30-minute chat. He asked who I was in terms of who do I want to be presented as and I told him I've probably pitched 15, 20 ideas and he said, 'Okay, give them to me. Pitch them to me.' I pitched every single, 15 ideas to him. He wrote them all down. We talked about each one. We talked about what would work and what wouldn't. He asked me why I thought certain things would work and why I thought certain things wouldn't, and 2 weeks later I was in that Survivor Series qualifying match.
Reiterating that the meeting went positively, Green said, "It went very well. Who knows on his end what he thought of me, but I left with such a positive vibe about the entire thing and relaying the meeting to Matt [Cardona], I realized how lucky I was to get such a long sitdown with Vince McMahon. People just don't get that."
On the days she waited for McMahon, Green revealed just how long she would sit outside of his office. Here is what she said:
"You show up at call time. You show up at, you know, 1 or 2. I would show up around -- so call time is 2 so I would show up around 1:30. I would sit beside his security guards outside his office and I would wait until 5 p.m... If you go and somebody else is sitting there you're like, 'No!' You know there's a chance you might not and you're going to sit there forever. I'll have to post it one of these days, but every time I waited outside I took a picture with Vince's office in the background with a funny face."
Prior to signing with WWE, Chelsea Green had worked for IMPACT Wrestling, Lucha Underground, and at ALL IN, where she faced Britt Baker, Madison Rayne, and Tessa Blanchard in a Four Corner Survival Match.
Green was originally scheduled to be called up to WWE's main roster after firing Robert Stone in May 2020, but her call-up was delayed. She would eventually make her SmackDown debut on November 13, 2020, but suffered a broken wrist in the match.
Green reportedly signed a new three-year deal prior to her release and had been cleared to return to action. She was backstage at the March 19 episode of WWE SmackDown, but never returned to television.
For more information on the Superstars who were released on April 15, you can click here.
