Cora Jade on Her Release from WWE, Being Body Shammed in WWE, & Her Ectopic Pregnancy Health Scare in January of 2023

A recent episode of The Ariel Helwani Show featured Elayna Black, former Cora Jade in WWE, as the guest. One of the topics discussed included Black’s thoughts about her release from WWE and the events leading up to it.

“Obviously, the initial shock of it all, even though I feel like I knew it was coming. I’m just really weird with my intuition. I always have been and I’ve always had this gut feeling. I want to say, November, I had a feeling that I was going to be gone. It’s always up and down. When it’s good, it’s good. Maybe two weeks before the cuts, it was Vegas, I was like, ‘I’m going to make it good because I’m not coming back here.’ I just had that gut feeling. Obviously, you don’t want it to be right, ‘Don’t manifest it,’ but I always had that gut feeling. That day, I was going to hang out with [Blair Davenport] and she called and said, ‘Josh [Riley Osborne] just got fired,’ her husband. ‘Okay, I’ll keep my ringer on.’ Sure as hell, two minutes later, I got the call. ‘Okay.’ It is what it is.”

Black also gave her thoughts about why she felt she was on thin ice in WWE.

“Coming back from a knee injury was crazy. I’ve never experienced anything like that. I didn’t play sports before wresting, so I never had a major injury that I had to come back from. Even just getting a month after that and feeling like I was in a good place, I had a conversation with somebody, who I won’t name, but someone I kind of feel I would have had a better experience there if it wasn’t for, not Shawn [Michaels] or Hunter [Triple H] or anybody, I can’t praise them enough, but there was a conversation with somebody where I was like, ‘Okay, this is probably going to be weird in a few months,’ and it was.”

Black also gave her thoughts about if her concerns was unsettling for her.

“Yeah, at times. I feel I can look at it and things I could have changed or done differently. When you think about it, there is nothing. I was there every day. I was cleaning up the locker room with Roxanne [Perez] after the shows because we’re from indie wrestling and that’s what you do. Until the day I was gone, that’s just what you do. You can always look at it and think what you can do different, but at the end of the day, I feel comforable in the fact that I got to do so much stuff with my best friend and so many of my best friends and I feel confident that I stood on my morales and things I spoke up about that maybe other people wouldn’t have.”

Black also gave her thoughts about her tweet claiming she was being body shammed by her bosses, co-workers, and WWE fans.

“I’ll say this because I did put it out there; the body shaming stuff. I don’t want this to be a bash WWE because it was my dream and still is my dream. I have no doubt, maybe one day in the near future, I’ll be there again, but it is what it is. Thinking about…my dream was to be a WWE Superstar. Then, I become a WWE Superstar and I accomplish all these goals and meet all these people, me and Roxanne became closer than ever doing these storylines. I got to work with Bayley, who is a hero of mine. [CM] Punk is a mentor to me now. I got to do so much, so I don’t want it to be bash WWE at all because I’m so happy with my time there. I did so much stuff that I was writing about in my notebook as a kid. I definitely think things could have went differently if it wasn’t for certain things, like the body-shaming thing. I came in at 19 years old. I was 110 pounds and so small. It was constant comments, whether it was guys who think they’re being funny or, I’m not going to name names, but I remember specifically being told that I wasn’t and wouldn’t be champion in that company because I look like I couldn’t crack an egg.

Multiple conversations about my body. I don’t think anyone, especially a man, should be saying that to a female. Especially because I was so young. It created a lot of issues for me, body-wise. I gained so much muscle after that. I worked my ass off. I would go to the strength and conditioning classes, which, in my opinion, are more geared towards college athletes and people coming in from college and working on that kind of strength and conditioning. It never felt like it was doing anything for my body. If you guys are yelling at me for how I look, but you’re not really helping me out in the strength and conditioning that I need, then I would just go to my other gym afterwards. I was working my ass off. Seeing [the report about released talents not working hard], if you only knew what I dealt with and how much I had to progress because of those things. People say so much and when you finally say something back, they’re like, ‘Woah.’ God forbid I say something back. Again, I don’t want it to seem like I’m bashing WWE because I loved my time there, I really did. I loved everybody there, but there were certain things and specifics where I’m like, ‘Damn, this is my dream. I didn’t go to college. I dropped out of high school at 15 and did a year online so I could start wrestling training.’ I don’t know anything else. It is defeating when things like that happen. You can only look at it as things happen for a reason. That’s how I feel.”

Black also gave her thoughts about if she was feeling better about things and her status in WWE during WrestleMania 41 week.

“Honestly, it’s so weird because I say I had that first feeling in November that I was getting fired, but I will say, for some reason, even though I had that in the back of my head all the time, those last six months of my career there was the best times I ever had. I don’t know if it was because in the back of my head I thought I was going to get fired, so I was just trying to live it up while I can and really soak it in and enjoy it, but those last six months, from October to May, those are the best times I had. I got to work with Bayley, I became super close with Stephanie [Vaquer] and Giulia. Roxanne is my best friend. We got to do so much stuff together inside and outside the ring that, I’m so happy I had those last six months and I’m so glad that ended there with all that. It had such a good ending for me.”

Black also gave her thoughts about if she had been told a specific reason for her release from WWE.

“I asked. I said, ‘Is there a specific reason or budget cuts?’ because that’s what they typically say. They said, ‘It was a company decision.’ I’m not going to sit there and argue with them. It is what it is.”

Black also gave her thoughts about her ectopic pregnancy health scare and surgery in January of 2023 and her being out of action until April of 2023.

“I’ve never talked about this, and it’s a very personal thing, but I want to say it. If you only knew what I was going through, you’re pretty messed up if that’s what you’re saying to me.

In January 2023, late January, I was supposed to wrestle Lyra Valkyria on TV on Tuesday. Long story short, I ended up in emergency surgery in hospital the night before. Literally almost dying and bleeding out because I had an ectopic pregnancy that had failed and it exploded and made me internally bleed. I was rushed into emergency surgery because I was this close [holds fingers close together] to bleeding out. Thank God I went because I was literally thinking, ‘I just have to get through the match tomorrow.’ I knew something wasn’t right, but I just thought I had to get through the match, but I’m bleeding. I had to go to the hospital. I got there and it was an eleven hour wait, they told me. ‘I can’t.’ They checked me in and immediately rushed me into emergency surgery. I dealt with that.

What happened was, I had an IUD birth control. It’s inserted into you. It’s a 99.9% success rate, but they warn you beforehand, it’s a five-year thing, you protect your eggs for five years. They warn you of ectopic pregnancy beforehand. It’s where the egg is implanted outside of the uterus in the fallopian tube, and that causes the fallopian tube to explode, you internally bleed, and it’s extremely life-threatening to the baby and woman. I was always scared of that in general, because I have health anxiety anyway, so I was always worried about that. My intuition, I was like, ‘I know what’s happening. I have to go.’ Had the emergency surgery, they ended up having to remove my left fallopian tube because it was that bad. I was bummed about missing Stand & Deliver. ‘I can’t miss Stand & Deliver.’ Nothing has ever happened to me like that before. I never realized the effects of it. After I came back those few months, I was the most mentally depressed I have ever been in my entire life. I remember calling one of the WWE doctors and being like, ‘I need to go somewhere. I’m not okay. This is not okay.’ I don’t know what it was because nothing was really wrong, but I learned later, you deal with post-partum depression, and it’s so intense. I was 23 years old and the craziest thing I had ever experienced. I went back to work and I was not there mentally. Nothing to do with work. I literally didn’t realize the toll that takes on you as a person. I had always wanted to get my boobs done. I’m not going to sit here and say I didn’t, but I needed to go away and take time off or I don’t know what was going to happen to me. Mentally, I needed to take that time off. I did that in my time off. That’s what I chose to do. I took that time, I was out for a month and half, and I got [my boobs] done and that was three months. I took that time to get myself mentally right. I felt good. I was ready to go. I was so excited. I felt good mentally, physically, and emotionally. It was probably the best I ever felt. Then, I came back, I had just went through a really bad break up, it was my birthday, and I tore my knee. It was back to back to back. I was so excited and ‘boom, boom, boom.'”

Transcript h/t: Fightful.com 1 & 2