There have been many wrestlers who got introduced to fans via the WWE but then rose to stardom after leaving the Stamford-based promotion. One such star is Steph De Lander. She used to be in NXT as the tag team partner of former NXT Women’s Champion Indi Hartwell.
Recently, the former WWE Superstar shared her thoughts on former WWE Women’s Tag Team Champion Chelsea Green.
The former WWE Superstar has been one of the promising stars in the independent wrestling promotions. According to her, it seems like if it was not for Chelsea Green that would not be possible. De Lander had less than a month left before she was going to be deported back to her home country of Australia. But The Hot Mess who helped her to live in the United States.
“Chelsea Green was one of the first ppl I (well, @indi_hartwell on my behalf) called when I got released from WWE. She gave me the name of her managers & her lawyers, and without her help and guidance I would not be living in the USA today. I had 29 days before I was getting deported back to Australia, and without Chelsea there would be no SDL as we know it. Not to mention she is always the first to pass on a gear designer or a photographer or tell you where she gets her boots made, and in a world of weird gatekeeping bullshit, it’s such a breath of fresh air. I could go on but I’ll stop… Chelsea is the f***ing best,” Steph De Lander tweeted.
The perfect heater
Matt Cardona also told WrestleZone what made De Lander the right person for him to partner up with. He also said that Green gave her blessing for De Lander to hit the road with him, as he saw De Lander as the perfect heater for him.
“So, Chelsea goes back to WWE. Brian Myers signs a full-time deal with IMPACT,” Cardona explained. “Admittedly, [he] wants to take less bookings, wants to do less indies. My whole thing for the year prior was like Chelsea getting involved. Brian Meyers would get involved. Sometimes, maybe ‘Smart’ Mark Sterling or Hornswoggle’s under the ring. So I felt like I was missing something, and I knew I needed somebody. I didn’t know who. I wasn’t going to have a Diva Search, although maybe that would have been a great idea.
“But when I saw Steph De Lander in Australia for World Series Wrestling, I had heard of her and I think I’d seen her at IMPACT before,” Cardona noted, “but I was around for a couple of days and this girl, she just has a presence. She’s six feet tall, these blonde bangs, the piercings, looks like she could kick my ass. I’m like, ‘This would be a perfect heater for me.’ But of course, I had to ask my wife if she’d be okay with me traveling with some other woman. Luckily, she understood, she was cool with it.”
“We knew we had to light a fire under this”
Cardona said he took a risk on De Lander, as he did not know what her personality would be. He made it clear that this move paid off. Cardona detailed how she is always coming up with ideas, and she wants to keep working, even when they’re not in the ring.
“Then I approached Steph and Steph didn’t hesitate and said yes,” Matt Cardona said. “I was taking a gamble because who knew what her personality be, what her work ethic would be. Turns out, she’s just as obsessed with wrestling as me, always coming up with ideas, wanting to do outside stuff. The job doesn’t end when you get home Monday morning. You don’t have until the next show. You have to be working, you have to be doing stuff.
“Whether it be doing stuff online or filming your own vignettes or thinking of merchandise. And Steph was on board for all of that, and we knew that we had to light a fire under this. So, we started doing weekly vignettes just so people would know what was going on. We would flood people’s timelines with videos of us, pictures of us, and it’s taken off.
Read More: Steph De Lander: Playing Persia Pirotta In NXT Solidified That Sex Sells, It’ll Turn Heads
Would you like to see Steph De Lander and Chelsea Green team up in the future?
