Trinity says she walked out of WWE ‘because of the way I was talked to and handled’

In Trinity Fatu’s first interview after returning to the wrestling world with Impact, she didn’t say much about WWE. But in a longer talk today (May 3) with Dave LaGreca, Mickie James & Tommy Dreamer on Sirius XM’s Busted Open, the wrestler formerly known as Naomi opened up more on her decade plus with WWE — and her decision to walk out of Raw last May.

On the decision to come to Impact, Trinity presented it as the result of a year that’s been “life-changing in all the right ways”. The start of that was the decision to leave WWE, and while she doesn’t go into specifics, she does give us some insight into that Monday night and what led up to her and Mercedes “Sasha Banks” Moné leaving. She also indirectly shot down talk that Mercedes influenced her decision:

“I chose and wanted to be at Impact. The doors are open for me everywhere, literally everywhere — but I truly feel like Impact is the best choice for me at this point in my life right now with what I want to do and to just be able to work with the talent there I feel that is where I’ll be happiest, and most utilized, and really get to grow in the ways that I feel that I need to right now on this wrestling journey.

“Had all of this stuff never happened, there’s no way that I would have took that leap but the situation kind of forced me to figure it out. That’s what I meant when I said everything was a blessing in disguise because I was really going through a lot, and just felt very stagnant and I wasn’t happy.

“Ultimately, I left that day because of the way I was talked to and handled. Everything kind of just broke me that day. It had nothing to do with anything else, anybody else. That was just it. I had to.

“To go through all the backlash, and the negativity, and the lies and the rumors and then to also kind of just feel lost, it broke me. It was probably the lowest I’ve ever felt in my life. But going through that made me reset and face it head on and figure out how to learn from this experience, grow from it, and just find myself again in all of it. I’m extremely happy now and really thankful for this opportunity to show that you haven’t seen me at my best yet.”

The two-time SmackDown Women’s also revealed she’d been working hurt prior to walking out, and that some of her downtime over the past year was getting that injury surgically fixed. She used that time to reflect, and combined with support from friends, family & fans, started on her next chapter with Impact:

“I also had, what people don’t know, I worked with a torn labrum for over a year. I kept wrestling, I didn’t talk about it [and] I didn’t say anything because you know, you don’t want to look weak. You don’t want to look like there’s a problem, you don’t want to be taken off TV, none of that. I wanted to keep working. So I continued to work with a shoulder injury and that was also affecting me, it didn’t feel good.

“So when I got the time off, the first thing I did was go get my shoulder fixed, had shoulder surgery so months off like that not being able to work, having all of it gone, at one point I was like I’m done, like I don’t even think I would probably wrestle again. Just working through it all with myself mentally and having a great support system and seeing the fans still like, ‘We want you back, we need to see you, how you doing.’ The support and my family, I got back to where I needed to be.

“Got through the injury, got through the surgery... I had surgery, I had shoulder surgery. I had a torn labrum. So yea all of that was just a lot mentally and then also being just off the road after that’s all I’ve known for the last 13-14 years...then all of a sudden just sitting home alone by myself in all of it to sort through myself. It was a lot.

“I feel that it’s made me stronger, better mentally, and physically I feel great. Just having that time to really miss wrestling and really miss the business and really miss the job, I was like ‘oh no, this ain’t it, I can’t go out like this, we have to run this back one more time.’ It was probably the scariest time of my life just being unsure of myself, my future, the first time I’ve been unemployed since I was like 16 years old. It’s made me better and want to go after this job and career even harder.”

Trinity also put over the Impact team, saying she felt “supported and welcome” by the people there. She told the Busted Open team that while her goal is to win the Knockouts title, she’s willing to work her way up the ladder to reach it.

That climb starts on television tomorrow night.

H/t WrestlingNews.co for transcription