Chelsea Green’s ‘Trashbag Gate’ story takes a surprising turn

We’re not done with Trashbag Gate yet, people! It’s the topic of Chelsea Green’s latest 50 Shades of Green podcast. And Green’s story of WWE sending her her belongings after she was released on April 15 doesn’t end up where you imagine.

Chelsea’s set-up of the story almost-but-not-quite confirms one aspect of the story:

“Before I tell you the contents of my box and my garbage bag, I just want to make it clear that after talking to all of the other females - I believe that every single person who has been released, that is a female, has received this garbage bag. Gail Kim put it out there last week as well that she, when she left WWE, received the garbage bag. This is a trend. This is a long trend. Now, I really don’t let things rub me the wrong way. So I laughed the garbage bag off. Was I a little annoyed? Yes, totally. My shit came in a garbage bag. But, I let it go.”

She goes on to say that her fiancé Matt Cardona (fka Zack Ryder) was “pissed”, in a way that makes it sound like he didn’t get this type of care package when he was released in 2020. That, combined with Green specifying “every single person... that is female”, leads me to believe men don’t get the garbage bag treatment.

Sheesh. Okay, back to the tale:

“Upon further inspection of the trash bag, I start to realize, ‘I’m not really sure what’s in this trash bag.’ I first pull out some black boots. Beautiful black boots, but not my black boots. I then pull out a second pair of black boots. Again, beautiful boots, not my boots. Okay, now here, we get to the third item. The third item was the most gorgeous little leather shrug with studs, and diamonds, and flappy things, and pink jewels, and all sorts of things. Now, if you know women’s wrestling, you know that the person who wears black leather with pink is always the same person. That is always going to be Nattie. So I knew right away that the contents of my box were actually Nattie’s box.”

“I continued to go — I pulled a couple of things out. A lot of it was Nattie’s, but I did run into some questionable items. Some cute little skirts, some cute little dresses, and things that kind of looked like maybe Lana’s or Liv [Morgan]’s. So I don’t know if there was other things in that box. There was also a basketball. I don’t know who the fuck is playing basketball at WWE backstage but somebody is getting their hoops in.

“So the content of my box was, in fact, not mine - and many other other females’. So I let them know that, and the person - he who shall not be named, because he who shall not be named was let go from WWE - he told me to drop the box off at someone’s house. Send the box on its way. I was shook. Shooketh, people. Shook. Because here’s the thing, the contents of this box are expensive. Wrestling boots is expensive, gear is expensive, clothing - it’s all expensive. I’m not just going to drop it off at somebody’s house and hope it gets to Tampa.”

Okay, first off, “he who shall not be named” has gotta be Mark Carrano. Second... are they just going around the women’s locker room throwing stuff in bags? Really?

Presumably, the sorority of wrestlers got this sorted out, and everyone got their gear back. Green doesn’t specify. But she does give more details on the amends WWE tried to make for the blowback from the Mickie James tweet that started “Trashbag Gate” a couple weeks back. It’s more evidence of the way WWE pushes a notion my man Marcus pushed back on last week - that its independent contractors are “family”.

“So, with all that being said, I will say I think WWE handled it in the best way possible. We saw Johnny Ace [Laurinaitis] tweet, we saw Stephanie McMahon tweet, Triple H tweeted... I really don’t know if they could have done anything else. I think that that was the perfect way to handle it.

“I will also say they didn’t stop there. They actually did individually call each of us to apologize, and they sent us flowers. So I thought that was really nice, and what else could they do? If they didn’t know that this was being done, the only thing you can do is do damage control, and Lord knows I know how to do damage control - damn. With the flowers, I got a little note and the note ended by saying, ‘From your WWE family.’ Uh! As if I didn’t have an open wound from being fired, from fucking being canned, they called me their family!? Uh, oh! No, honestly - the flowers are beautiful. I’m sitting here staring at the flowers. I really can’t talk shit. The flowers are amazing. Probably very expensive too. So I do think the way they handled it was proper, perfect. Trashbag Gate 2021. Hopefully, it’ll never happen again.”

I agree that that’s perfect... but maybe not in the same way Green means.