Taya Valkyrie was one of the most accomplished women's wrestlers in the world when she joined WWE at the beginning of 2021.
Holding titles in IMPACT, AAA, and other promotions, Valkyrie entered with plenty of notoriety and was presented as a star upon arrival. Unfortunately for Valkyrie (known as Franky Monet in NXT), her time in the company was cut short as she was released less than a year after signing.
Her release came on November 4, shortly after NXT shifted to NXT 2.0, putting more focus on younger and newer talent.
"It was night and day," Valkyrie told Chris Van Vliet on Insight when discussing the shift from NXT to NXT 2.0. "It was an obvious change of energy and obvious feeling because we were hearing all sorts of rumors about what they were looking for compared to last week. I was very confused. 'What is going on?' It was like the summer. It was so weird and the most confusing experience of my entire life and having working everywhere, I was just left, 'what is going on?' 100% (it felt like walking on eggshells). I think everybody was. I can only speak for myself, but I can say the energy definitely shifted. We were hearing rumors all the time about 'they are going to be firing people this week' and the whole week, everyone is scared. We're all busting our asses. I ended up training with Corino and the boys in the tag class. I loved training with MSK and Imperium because they are pushing me and making me do different stuff. It's really cool learning from different people from different walks of life and paths. Everything was good and everyone was working really hard. The shift of how they wanted 2.0 to be literally changed from one day to the next. It just made everyone almost like hold your breath."
NXT shifted to NXT 2.0 in September with Triple H's regime being ushered out.
When asked if Triple H losing control of the brand had anything to do with Valkyrie's release, she replied, "No one ever said that to me or confirmed anything like that. I don't know. It was really confusing and I tired to make sense of it for a really long time and I was really angry, but you can't make sense of something that doesn't make sense. All I can say is that I worked very hard, I gave everything I could like everywhere I worked before and it was very confusing and I felt like I did something wrong. I'm a sensitive person. When everything went down, it was very confusing and heartbreaking for me because I felt like I let everyone down."
An emotional Valkyrie continued, noting that her husband John Morrison was on the WWE UK Tour at the time.
"John was on tour in the UK. Thank God, my friend Heather Monroe picked me up to go shopping when I got the call. I felt like I was representing the over 30 women who are still badasses and look good and do their job, are passionate, and can work, and I feel like I let everyone down. I know I'm putting that on myself, but it's been really rough. I now know that I did nothing wrong. It just sucks. It sucks when you meet your heroes and you work at a place you dreamed of working forever and it's something so out of your control," she said. "Had I not gone there, I would have regretted it forever. I don't regret going there. I just wish it had been handled differently and I would have been given a chance. I still made really cool friends and got to work with people I probably never would have worked with. Shoutout to all the coaches I got to learn from and the creative team and writers; Road Dogg, William Regal, all these people that really did help me."
Morrison was released two weeks later, which angered Valkyrie, who tweeted, "Stop supporting a company that has ZERO respect for their talent."
Valkyrie noted she received threats and "kill yourself" messages over her tweets, which is not okay, and made her anxious to be around fans again, but said the fans have been good to her upon her return to the ring.
Valkyrie has since returned to AAA and is working various Independent dates.
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