Toni Storm Thought She Was "Going to Leave Forever" After WWE Release
When WWE released Toni Storm in December, she thought about walking away from professional wrestling altogether—at least until AEW came calling. She was served her walking papers in December of 2021, just one week after going up against Charlotte Flair for the SmackDown Women's Title. That match took place on Christmas Eve, and Storm found herself out of a job just a few days later.
The release was a shock to many, both inside and outside WWE. Storm is only 26 and had been putting on some stellar matches for the company inside of the NXT UK brand extension. She won the Mae Young Classic in 2018 and was NXT UK's champion for a time. Storm seemed to be a key cog of the women's division in WWE but was future endeavored anyway.
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According to Storm, this sapped her love of professional wrestling, at least for a short while. She spoke at length about her WWE release on AEW Unrestricted and said, "(t)here were moments at first where I was like, ‘Oh, well, this is shockingly terrible. I’m going to leave forever.'" The New Zealander went on to say that those feelings " didn’t last long" and described herself as a "lifer." Storm also said that «I’ll probably be around until I’m old as hell, and I’ll probably have kids that wrestle. I’m here for life. What else am I gonna do? I don’t have any other qualifications. I don’t like anything else.» (h/t to WrestlingNews.co for the transcription)
AEW hasn't come under fire for much during its nearly three-year history. However, how they've handled their women's division so far has been one of AEW's most frequent criticisms — and those objections have been more than fair. AEW has struggled to create new female stars in the same way it has on the
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