While Tessa Blanchard gained her global name via TNA, she did try out for WWE. The former TNA star appeared on a few episodes of NXT in 2016 as part of the Mae Young Classic. However, WWE did not sign her. Speaking on “WrestleMagicPod“, she revealed,
“People are always going to have something to say, good, bad, or indifferent. When I first started with TNA, it was Impact Wrestling. I remember back at my WWE tryout in 2014, William Regal told me, I think it was, it may have been the May Young Classic that he told me this, but William Regal, I remember us being in the Performance Center was the thing, and he told me, ‘Tess, let me talk to you for a second.’”
“And he pulls me off to the side and he’s like, ‘Okay, uh, if we did not sign you right now, would you still be a wrestler?’ And I was like, ‘Well, yeah, I love this.’ And he’s like, ‘Okay, well then I need you to go out there and get more experience.’”
“I remember feeling kind of defeated, but I went to Japan. Went to China. I went to Australia. Went to Austria. I went to the UK. Trained in these countries. I learned every style. Wanted to be the most versatile wrestler that I could be, so no matter who I was in the ring with, what style, what ethnicity, what country—it didn’t matter. I could go out there and have a great match.”
“Never thought TNA would be a part of my story. I’m a Blanchard. I’m going to start wrestling, I’m going to be the best that I can be, and I’m going to go to WWE. This was gonna be my path. Sometimes the path that God has for you is way different than the path that you have for yourself. That was my case 100%.”
“I’ve done the May Young Classic. I did fighting with my family. Did like they know who I am and if they’re not picking me up right now, like I believe in myself to be a star and I’m going to show them.”
“I remember signing with Impact and learning so much from Tommy and learning so much from Jimmy Jacobs. Learning how to work TV style and it was probably one of the best things I ever did for my career was to go there and just learn and just be thrown into the end and learn. Even if I didn’t feel confident, I could fake it until I made it and I remember a fire bring lit under my a** with all that.”
