Tessa Blanchard recently made her return to TNA Wrestling at TNA Final Resolution, and after nearly five years away from the company, she opened up about what the response to her return was like backstage.
Blanchard is a controversial figure in the wrestling world. She was previously accused of spitting in La Rosa Negra’s face and using racist language. Blanchard denied the allegations, and they later made amends.
Speaking with Sportskeeda WrestleBinge, Tessa Blanchard discussed the backstage reaction to her return.
“First and foremost, a lot of people, you can tell them the sky is green and they would believe it,” Blanchard said. “There are a lot of stories and things out there that, I read it and, ‘this came out of left field, I don’t even know where they cooked this up.’ There are some stories where there is 20% truth to something and some things got completely twisted in telephone, telegram, tell a wrestler. As far as the locker room, everyone is going to feel something or think something. A lot of people were fed a story from someone who is no longer with the company, that is completely not true and completely manipulated into something that it wasn’t. Now, the conversations that I need to have, or feel I need to have, I’m having them.
“There are a lot of one-sided things out in the public, and my side has never really been told. My side has never really been shared with a lot of these people. When I left wrestling for around three years, I was in a mental state where I didn’t want to see a wrestling ring, I didn’t want to talk about wrestling, I didn’t want to see anyone that had to do with the wrestling world. I completely cut it off, deleted certain social media that were bad. I was getting flooded with messages, and my family as well, that no person or 14-year-old little sister should have to read. It was better for me to separate myself. I went back to college. I joined Army ROTC, I’m going after my Global Affairs degree now, and I know who I am without wrestling. That’s what I didn’t know before. Everything in my life was wrestling, and when you lose that thing that is absolutely everything to you, you better know who you are because if you fall, you fall hard.”
Blanchard coming back to TNA a “different woman”
Blanchard previously left TNA in 2020. In the interview, she highlighted how she had grown a lot turning her time away. She also noted that a lot of people in the locker room never had an experience with her.
“Now, I’m coming back and I know who Tessa is without wrestling,” Tessa Blanchard said. “I’m an absolute force, but I’m a different woman. For anyone in the locker room, any fans who want to judge me or think that they know me or know truth about a certain situation that quite possibly, people need to look at a situation and think, ‘maybe this could have been manipulated,’ or every reaction has a reaction.
“A lot of things get turned into something it’s not. For me, it’s easier to let people think what they think than to defend myself, at the time, which maybe isn’t the best answer, and maybe I haven’t always made the right decisions, but that’s the way my head was at the time and we move on from there.
“As far as the locker room, there are a lot of people who have never had an experience with me, it’s a whole different company now, and this was around four or five years ago that I was even in IMPACT. You’re not the same person you were two months ago, a year ago, and all of these people are going to have to relearn who Tessa Blanchard is.
“I’m okay with that. I’m no stranger to hard work. I’ve always said my last name doesn’t do much for me because once you get in the ring, it doesn’t take the bumps for you, it doesn’t drive the miles for you, it doesn’t pay the bills for you. It’s your training and what you are able to do in there. I always heard it’s who you know to get there and what you can do to stay there.”
Tessa Blanchard: Hard Work Doesn’t Scare Me
Blancard then noted that she had to start from scratch when she went to CMLL, and that didn’t scare her. She stated that she had to redefine who she was.
“When I moved to Mexico to go to CMLL, it was the same story,” she said. “I had to start over from scratch and relearn a whole new style. I had to make new friends and redefine who Tessa Blanchard is. That didn’t scare me. Hard work doesn’t scare me. Starting over from the ground and working up doesn’t scare me. That might intimidate a lot of people, so if someone is intimated, it’s easier to villainize a person. That’s okay with me. Whatever you or anyone else thinks about me, that has everything to do with you, but nothing to do with me.”
