Vanessa Borne Discusses What’s Next Following WWE Release

Despite being released by WWE in May and not wrestling an official match since January 2020, Vanessa Borne is ready to continue her wrestling career. 

Borne was signed by NXT in 2016 when she first started her wrestling career and now that she’s a free agent, she’s ready to explore what the rest of the wrestling world has to offer. 

“After I got released, the first thing I thought was, ‘You need to get in the ring as soon as possible.’ I wanted to know how I would feel and how I would do. It was three days after I got released, I found a wrestling school in Texas and jumped into a class. It felt good and right. I got back in the ring and loved it. I can’t just say goodbye to wrestling because I was released from WWE. I feel like a lot of people think WWE is the top and you can’t do any better than that, but the way wrestling is today, there are so many other great organizations and so many talented people out there. Before getting into wrestling, I didn’t know that because I didn’t come from the Independents. I really want to give what I can to wrestling. I’ve only shown a small percentage of what I can do in the ring and I never got a chance to cut promos or do that kind of storytelling. That’s what I excel in and I never got to show that,” she said. 

Borne continued by saying, “I want to see what else is out there. My immediate thought isn’t, ‘I need to do whatever I can to get back [to WWE]. My thought is, ‘I need to do what I can to use my talents and be fulfilled.’ I don’t think it would be healthy for me to have the mindset of ‘I need to get back to WWE’ at this time. I want to explore and take on other projects if I want to. I’ve watched a little bit of everything and there is a lot of talent that is phenomenal. There is not one organization where I’m like, ‘this is the one I’d consider going to.’ I would like to consider all my options to find the best fit for me or the organization I like as a whole when it comes to the culture and how they treat talent. There are a lot of other organizations and I think that’s why a lot of talent today doesn’t see getting released from WWE as the end of the world.”

WWE currently has the name “Vanessa Borne” trademarked, though a notice of allowance was issued on April 27. WWE has six months to respond. If they fail to properly respond, they will lose the trademark. 

When asked about the use of her name and character, Borne said, “I’ve had a bunch of people reach out about bookings but I haven’t taken any as of yet. As far as the name and my character, I have so many ideas. I want to go back to the original Vanessa Borne idea. With the name, I’m not going to go by Danielle. My character has to be separate from me. I have no idea what my name is going to be, that’s the one thing I haven’t thought too much about. As far as my character and what I want to put out there, I have a fairly good idea. It’s just figuring out how I’m going to do that.”

Borne had a whirlwind WWE career as she was called up to the main roster in 2020, but never used on television before being sent back to NXT, where she still wasn’t used. 

Elsewhere during the interview, Borne revealed she was pitched to be part of RETRIBUTION, but the idea was dropped after she expressed her concerns. You can find her full comments by clicking here. 

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