Mercedes Mone almost walked away from the world of wrestling.
In May 2022, Mercedes Mone and Naomi walked out of WWE due to creative frustrations. With rumors and reports swirling, Mone was absent from the world of wrestling for the remainder of the year before turning up in NJPW at Wrestle Kingdom 17 in January 2023.
Before her Wrestle Kingdom appearance, fans were speculating on Mone's future in wrestling, with some suggesting that she could retire and focus on other ventures.
While chatting with Katee Sackhoff for a new interview, Mone revealed that she did consider fully stepping away from the world of wrestling.
“I did. I did because of how hurt I was by it and how much it drove me into a place of darkness. I couldn’t believe something that brought me so much light in my life, that saved me so many times when I was a kid, brought me so much darkness. I was just like, I don’t want to feel like this, I don’t want to have so much stress where I’m legit killing myself because all of the stress that I’m creating or the sadness that I’m bringing to myself because of this bad mental talk my head. So, just a lot of healing, just a lot of healing and I told myself no, this is still what I freaking love, I love wrestling and I still have the same goal of when I was 10 years old and no one’s going to take that away. I felt like at this time, maybe they want to see me gone forever, maybe people want to see me disappear. I’m like, I can’t give that to people, I can’t give up on myself and I can’t give up on my dream. I still have so much light and passion for this and such a chase and a drive. My light and my god told me, you’ve got to keep on going. So here’s New Japan, take your bags, go to Japan and go make one of your dreams happen. That happened and then just more dreams kept on coming and coming and then more talks with AEW happened and then the connection just kind of realigned and it was finally perfect until I signed a contract with AEW and it felt so right because I knew I could create so much more new dreams and memories for women’s wrestling.”
Elsewhere in the interview, Mone talked about her future in wrestling and the possibility of retirement. Check out her full comments on the matter by clicking here.
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