Steph De Lander on Differences In Creative Freedom Between WWE, TNA, & ROH

A recent episode of TMZ Sports’ Inside The Ring podcast featured former TNA and current indies and ROH talent Steph De Lander as the guest. One of the topics discussed included De Lander’s thoughts about what she enjoys the most in Ring of Honor compared to her time in TNA Wrestling.

“I mean, I have to say the best part is being back in the ring, you know, physically wrestling. It’s incredible. It’s what I’ve wanted to do my whole life. It’s what I’ve spent the last 10 years doing. And to have that almost taken away from you and be able to overcome, you know, a neck injury and come back from that and be back in the ring and not just back in the ring, but within a few months.

I mean, I returned from my injury in April. By August, I’m on Ring of Honor pay-per-view. So, I’m not just back in the ring. I’m on TV. I’m on pay-per-view. I’m wrestling world champions. Um, I’m working for a new company. Like I have yet again, as I always do, I’ve exceeded all of my expectations and my goals.”

De Lander also gave her thoughts about her praise of the creative freedom that ROH offers and how she can come up with all sorts of stuff and let them play it in her matches.

“I mean, you know, we were having a conversation before this interview, and I’m sure you saw how excited I was and I saw how excited you were discussing ideas, right? That’s my favorite part of this whole thing.

So, being able to come into something like Ring of Honor with a bunch of ideas for my matches and gimmick and storyline and whatever else, you know, I’ve only had a few matches there, but I can already see the way that it works, and I’m just so excited to get in there and work with a bunch of different people and be able to be creative with my art.”

De Lander also gave her thoughts about how she was allowed to be very creative in TNA but she didn’t wrestle much in the promotion due to injury issues.

“At TNA, I was allowed to be very creative as well. Um, and a lot of that was I, you know, I didn’t wrestle much at TNA. For a majority of the time that I was there, I was injured, right? So, I was very lucky that even though I was out, I was in a huge major storyline.

I had a wedding, you know, so I was able to write my own wedding vows and basically like plan out a whole TV wedding. I did an engagement, you know what I mean? We had like so many—we got—we were divorced cuz my husband actually went insane in real life and quit the company. So, and then I did later. Um, but no, so there was there was actually for me so many moments where I was allowed to be really creative at TNA.”

De Lander also gave her thoughts about the creative freedom during her time in WWE. De Lander stated that WWE was a lot stricter but she believes it is good that WWE is strict because its television and is the biggest wrestling show on that scale.

“So, I understand why there’s different levels of, you know, restraints on things. But no, for me, I was allowed to be creative in TNA. I’m excited to be creative in Ring of Honor. That’s kind of the part of it that I love the most.”

Transcript h/t: F4WOnline.com