AQA, formerly known as Zayda Ramier, recently opened up about her WWE release.
Ramier made her WWE debut on March 31, 2021, but she only wrestled a handful of times prior to release on November 4.
During a recent appearance on A Wrestling Gal, AQA described the “road to her release,” which was paved by a complicated medical situation. She noted that she didn’t ask for her release before she recalled the incident that derailed her time with the company. After she missed some time with an injury, AQA described how she had anxiety-like symptoms when she was training, and doctors struggled to figure out what the deeper issue was.
“… I go over there to the sled pushes… and I do ‘em, I feel great,” said AQA. “But when I stop, my body kinda tells me you need to chill out a little bit. You know, you know how you’re doing exercise and you need to do a little rest break? And I’m like nah, nah I got this, I’m ready, let’s go. And so I do a few more, and I come back and immediately my body’s like oh my god. And I’m like okay, I need to sit down. Even my friend, I’m not gonna say anyone’s names because I don’t want anyone to be brought into it. But one of my friends that was there, she’s doing great on NXT, I’m so proud of her, she was like you need to sit down. Because I got really hot, like I felt like I was a human furnace. I was like why am I so hot?
“And so me being a dummy, I walked straight past my water bottle and I go in the restroom and I’m splashing water on my face and it’s giving me this temporary relief, and I’m like okay, okay what’s going on. And then I looked down, my hands are starting to shake and they’re all clammy and stuff. I’m like what is this feeling? Unbeknownst to me, I deal with anxiety. I have anxiety, which almost everybody does. But I always have those exact symptoms except for, it’s always followed by like the hyper [heavy breathing], that’s how I know I’m having an anxiety attack. But I had every symptom except for the breathing, so it just canceled out of my mind.”
AQA then noted that she personally ruled out anxiety during the incident because her breathing wasn’t acting up, but she was worried she was dying. She then looked back on how she felt better when she had some Gatorade, but she was still jittery. When the doctor asked her if she had ever felt this way. When AQA recalled that she had a similar experience when she was 13, doctors scrambled to understand why the feeling was happening at this point in time before they linked the two episodes.
“…I go to the medical team and I’m like, ‘Hey I feel like I’m gonna pass out, I’m really hot, I’m shaky and jittery,” said AQA. “I don’t know what’s going on. And the person, she’s like okay, let me sit you down. They do like a little legs up thing, and I’m was this ain’t doing nothing for me. And then she goes back and she gets me like an orange Gatorade… and an ice pack. And immediately like the hot goes away. But I still have these really bad shaky jitters, not realizing like it’s just my anxiety acting up, trying to tell me hey, calm down, everything’s alright, just chill out. And I got these little jitters and I’m like okay hey the hot’s gone, but what’s going on with my body? It was still jittery.
“And then she asked me casually she was like you ever been hot like that before? And then I was like oh, when I was about 13 on my trampoline, yeah. And she asked me to describe that and I was like you know how you stand up to fast and you see the black? So I described that…. And so I’m not thinking anything about it, and so as time goes on, about two [or] three days later, one of the head doctors comes and he’s telling me, he’s like hey, you know, just to be sure, we’re gonna pull you for a little bit. And they’re gonna double-check, triple-check, quadruple-check all of the boxes before they put you back in the ring. So I’m like alright I’m probably gonna be out at the most two weeks. So I’m like alright because I felt fine immediately after I had that Gatorade.”
Despite the connection between the two incidents, AQA pointed out that the first episode happened on a hot summer day, when she was outside and dehydrated. She emphasized that the confusing journey she followed while medical professionals tried to diagnose her wasn’t anyone’s fault. Instead, the company was just following its protocols. She then stated that she passed all of the company’s tests before the situation went quiet in September.
AQA then named October 5th as the day she was medically disqualified, as the WWE doctors told her that while she was technically cleared to wrestle, she couldn’t compete in a WWE ring because they still didn’t know what happened in her previous episode.
“They were like we’re gonna disqualify you basically because, this was the exact quote, it was, “You’re 100% fine to wrestle, you just can’t wrestle here,'” said AQA. “Which means like basically, we can’t tell Vince you are alright, we don’t know why you almost passed out that day… They were in a very nice way like you’re good, you’re good to go, it’s just we can’t use you here until you or another doctor figures out like what exactly happened that day.”
Despite these difficulties, AQA stated that she had a “beautiful experience” in WWE, as she praised the people she met and the experiences she had. She then explained that, ultimately, her medical issue stemmed from the fact that she was dehydrated at the time of her incident, and inconsistencies with her paperwork were also responsible for her lack of clearance. She described how a doctor WWE recommended was willing to clear her, but multiple medical officials failed to give her the green light due to the confusion surrounding her condition.
“I went to a doctor that was recommended to me by them, I went to him, and basically he told me… he was like, ‘Yeah, you were dehydrated that day, and I can see that,'” AQA recalled. “And he wrote me a letter of clearance. He’s one of their heart doctors, he’s like yeah you’re fine, I’m gonna clear you. There you go. What I later discovered was there was a bit of an inaccuracy on my paperwork. So that’s what I think eventually led to my release because all the doctors were in agreement that you’re fine, you know what I mean, but because of this particular diagnosis, you know we can’t clear you for that.”
Moving forward, AQA made it clear that she’s “fine”, but she still wants to get cleared so she can wrestle elsewhere. She emphasized that she understands the company’s emphasis on being careful, and she doesn’t blame them whatsoever for the way her medical issues were handled. Instead, she focused on the positive by noting that WWE gave her plenty of opportunities, even after she was deemed unfit to compete.
“They gave me plenty of chances,” said AQA. “Like even after I was disqualified on October 5, the last like two or three weeks of the month, they gave me a bunch of opportunities. They let me audition to be an interviewer, they let me audition for commentary, they let me sustain for ring announcing. They let me audition for a bunch of stuff, and we were coming up with a bunch of plans for me to be an on-screen character.”
Still, though she grew a lot as a performer, she turned down the opportunity for a non-wrestling role, so she never appeared on WWE TV again prior to her release.
“They gave me a chance because they realized what I could do,” said AQA. “Like I said I had stepped up in my promos and everything like that and they saw the character that I was becoming. And so they’re like we can use this someway on NXT. But it came down to, at the end of the day, I was here to wrestle and not do the extracurricular stuff. So that’s why all those ideas ended up being turned down. But no it wasn’t anything bad , no experience.
At the end of the day, AQA repeated her stance that she had a “great experience,” and she even noted that the company sources told her that they want her back if/when she gets cleared.
“I’m not angry about anything,” said AQA. “I had a great experience, all my coaches were great, medical stuff was great. Like I said, no one made a mistake. No one made a bad call. It was just, everyone was being overly cautious and it was just like okay, do the safety of you, let’s just take you out now and then let’s see what happens later on in the future. Because it was made known to me a lot by some very important people like, ‘We want you back, and we’ll have you back when we can have you back. But figure this out first.'”
Time will tell whether AQA returns to WWE, but her first run with the company was clearly hamstrung by a situation that was out of her control.
