Wrestling
Ash By Elegance Says Return To WWE To Win TNA Knockouts Championship ‘Couldn’t Have Written Itself Better’
Ash By Elegance reflects on returning to WWE with TNA earlier this year.
Ash By Elegance reflects on returning to WWE with TNA earlier this year.
In September of 2023, Dana Brooke would be released from her WWE contract, leaving her unsure if she would continue wrestling full time. At the beginning of 2024, Dana would appear in TNA under the name Ash By Elegance, a character that would eventually bring her back to WWE as part of the companies partnership with TNA, winning the TNA Knockouts Championship at NXT Heatwave earlier this year.
While speaking to Fightful’s Sean Ross Sapp in a new interview, Ash By Elegance spoke about returning to WWE as a TNA wrestler, noting that she couldn’t have written the return better.
“Oh my God, it was a feeling that I can’t even describe because it was it’s so weird, right? You leave a company that you’re like, ‘Oh, man, that’s all I knew.’ WWE was all I knew. Coming into an unknown territory, TNA, I’m like, ‘Okay, guys, should I really be doing this? Like, am I just going to be wasting my time?’ But it was a company that took pride and they took a chance on me and they gave me an opportunity and a big surprise. Shawn and I had texted a bit and he’s like, ‘Look, just promise me this, you’re not gonna give up here.’ I was like, ‘Shawn, I just don’t know what to do. I don’t know where to go. I never knew that there was a world of wrestling outside of there.’ I was like, ‘Okay, you know what? You’re right, I’ll keep going.’ So many other people like Pam, who’s Bayley, she was so proud of me, too, when I debuted at TNA. Who came out of the works was Pam and Sasha. They’re like, ‘Surprise, we’re here. We wouldn’t miss it.’ I was like, ‘Oh, my God, you’re here for me?’ They’re like, ‘We’re here for you and Trinity.’ Being able to see what Trinity did, Naomi over there, while I was just coming in and breaking into the business over at TNA, I was like, ‘Alright, this is a good place to be and I know that they said that they’re going to take a chance.’ But you know you have like PTSD in the back of your head, right? Coming from WWE where they’re like, ‘Okay, we’re gonna give you this chance and we’re gonna get you there,’ and here you go taking like little baby steps and like, ‘Okay, you’re gonna go and have a match on Monday Night Raw, you’re gonna lose but next week we’re gonna use you,’ and it never happens, right? So I’m going into an unfamiliar territory being promised the world and going over there and seeing a familiar face that’s
actually been able to climb and redevelop herself and then she left the day I was starting and went back over to WWE. I’m like, ‘Okay, this is awesome.’ But if you watch my Immersed program on the FITE Network, there’s some little clues and little things that is like, ‘I was supposed to win at Slammiversary last year.’ I was like, ‘Okay, I feel like I have PTSD all over again.’ But Tommy in my corner, Tommy never gave up on me and he promised me something and he kept true to his word. A year later was better then than it was before, if that makes sense. ‘Cause I was able to go back, not ever thinking it was ever going to happen and go back to where it all started and capture that title. It couldn’t have written itself better.”
TNA are set to head to El Paso, Texas on December 5th and 6th, with Final Resolution on the 5th and a set of television tapings on the 6th from the El Paso County Coliseum. You can find tickets for the television tapings here.
