Elayna Black Talks About Missed Opportunities In WWE Due To Her Release, Interesting Advice CM Punk Gave Her, Joining AEW?
Elayna Black, formerly known as Cora Jade in WWE, appeared as a guest on the latest episode of the wildly popular INSIGHT with Chris Van Vliet podcast for an in-depth interview covering all things pro wrestling.
During the discussion, the women’s wrestling star spoke about having a feeling that her WWE release was coming, missed opportunities in WWE, the possibility of signing with AEW, wanting a match with Mercedes Mone, as well as the best advice she ever received from CM Punk.
Featured below are some of the highlights from the interview where she touches on these topics with her thoughts.
On having a feeling that her WWE release was coming: “I don’t know. I feel like people have asked me that a few times, and I don’t know exactly what it is. Nothing specific happened. I’ve just always kind of been like that. I feel like a handful of my friends that I had talked to, I specifically remember talking to Roxanne, she’s my best friend, and I was like, I know I’m gonna be gone, and [she said] ‘You’re crazy, no no.’ But I always know, in my intuition, when something is happening. I don’t know what that is, I just had that feeling. And at the end of Vegas, we had that whole WrestleMania week. I remember on my flight back, I was just like, well, that’s a wrap. That was it. I just knew. And then what was it? I got fired on May 2. It was two weeks later, after Mania, it was like, well I already knew that was happening.”
On missed opportunities in WWE: “I feel like, obviously, there are things that I didn’t get to do. But at the same time, like you said, that was my dream. I was eight years old, I watched wrestling and I immediately wanted to be a WWE superstar. Then I would look at all my little notebooks, I would have these bucket lists, little lists, and I would cross them off every time I would do something. It would say, get an action figure, have merchandise, wrestle this person, wrestle here, do all this stuff. And then I looked and I was crossing off so many of those things. Really, the only one I didn’t cross off was wrestling at WrestleMania, or winning the NXT Championship, or obviously any other championship. But I had gotten to do so many things that my little eight-year-old self [could only dream of]. I would lay in my bed and dream of doing those things at night. So again, obviously there are things that were disappointing and stuff like that, but never will I sh*t on WWE or trash WWE. I loved my time there. Obviously, when you care about something and you’re passionate about something, things are going to bother you. It’s because I care, it’s not because I’m like, oh f*ck this, whatever. I care about wrestling so much, and I love wrestling so much, and it is my dream and it is my passion. So yes, things did bother me, and things did upset me, because I’m only human, and I’m a human who cares about my passion, my job. So obviously, that’s gonna come up. But at the same time, I can’t say enough good things about the people I got to work with, the things I got to do, all the dreams I got to accomplish. I loved my time at WWE so much, and especially those last six months. I got to do it with Roxanne, with Bayley, with Giulia, Stephanie, all these girls I became so close with and I got to travel with them and do all these great matches and storylines with them. I loved my time at WWE so much. Were there things that upset me? Yes. Am I bitter or anything like that? Absolutely not. I’m only 24 years old. Who knows what the future holds? I’ll never burn a bridge because I don’t know what the future holds. I don’t know if I’ll be back there one day. I don’t know where I’ll end up. But all I know is that I loved WWE, and I loved my time there, and I have no bad things to say about them.”
On possibly signing with AEW: “I’m open to whatever. I’m not in any rush to sign anywhere right now. I’m not like sitting here waiting for that. Because I feel like for the first time in my life, I’m trying to be present and just enjoy life now and what’s happening now. Because I feel like a lot of times I was always worried about what’s next, and this business is so go, go, go, go, go. It’s hard to sit and be present. So I feel like I’m trying to just enjoy where I’m at right now and not worry about that. But if the call came, I would definitely be open to talking and whatever. I’ve watched all the AEW shows since 2020, I never stopped watching them. Just couldn’t talk about it. I love AEW. I love wrestling. I want to continue to wrestle, wherever that is. If the call comes, hey, I’m here, but if it doesn’t for a few months or never, I don’t know. I’m not sitting here stressing about it, but I’m open to it.”
On wanting a match with Mercedes Mone: “That’s my current dream match. I feel like her and Bayley were my favorites out of the four Horsewomen. I loved all of them, but I feel like I really, really looked up to them two specifically. I feel like I just felt the most connected to them two because Mercedes was always writing in her notebook too. And I feel like I look at her and see aspects of myself too. So to be able to wrestle her now, where we both have had our time in WWE and we’re both doing our own thing now and doing whatever we want creatively, I feel like that is the ultimate dream match.”
On the best advice she received from CM Punk: “I feel like he’s told me a lot of things in very different situations. But I feel like the number one thing is to just drown out what everyone else is saying, because I feel like he knows it better than anybody. Everyone has an opinion on him, whether you absolutely love him, or you absolutely hate him, everyone has an opinion on CM Punk. I’ve always wondered, how does he just continue to be himself and not give a sh*t when there’s a million different opinions from a million different places. But he’s really, really always helped me just understand that it doesn’t matter. People are always going to say something. They’re going to love you or they’re going to hate you, and either way, it doesn’t matter, because you just have to be you and do what you feel is right and stay true to yourself and if people support you, great. That’s great motivation. But if they don’t, and they don’t like you, and they don’t want to watch what you do, or they want to watch what you do and criticize it, that’s still your name in their mouth, and someone’s talking about you and you’re doing something right.”
