Posted on 6/19/125 by Colin Vassallo
Elayna Black, the former NXT star known as Cora Jade, sat
down with Chris Van Vliet to discuss getting released from
WWE and why it wasn’t a surprise, leaving school at 15 to
chase her dreams of becoming a professional wrestler, the
first time she met CM Punk and getting to work with him in
WWE, dealing with criticism about her wrestling and
launching an OnlyFans page, her matches in AEW and possibly
becoming All Elite, her current dream match and more!
On having a feeling that her WWE release was coming:
“I don’t know. I feel like people have asked me that a few
times, and I don’t know exactly what it is. Nothing specific
happened. I’ve just always kind of been like that. I feel
like a handful of my friends that I had talked to, I
specifically remember talking to Roxanne, she’s my best
friend, and I was like, I know I’m gonna be gone, and [she
said] ‘You’re crazy, no no.’ But I always know, in my
intuition, when something is happening. I don’t know what
that is, I just had that feeling. And at the end of Vegas,
we had that whole WrestleMania week. I remember on my flight
back, I was just like, well, that’s a wrap. That was it. I
just knew. And then what was it? I got fired on May 2. It
was two weeks later, after Mania, it was like, well I
already knew that was happening.”
On missed opportunities in WWE:
“I feel like, obviously, there are things that I didn’t get
to do. But at the same time, like you said, that was my
dream. I was eight years old, I watched wrestling and I
immediately wanted to be a WWE superstar. Then I would look
at all my little notebooks, I would have these bucket lists,
little lists, and I would cross them off every time I would
do something. It would say, get an action figure, have
merchandise, wrestle this person, wrestle here, do all this
stuff. And then I looked and I was crossing off so many of
those things. Really, the only one I didn’t cross off was
wrestling at WrestleMania, or winning the NXT Championship,
or obviously any other championship. But I had gotten to do
so many things that my little eight-year-old self [could
only dream of]. I would lay in my bed and dream of doing
those things at night. So again, obviously there are things
that were disappointing and stuff like that, but never will
I sh*t on WWE or trash WWE. I loved my time there.
Obviously, when you care about something and you’re
passionate about something, things are going to bother you.
It’s because I care, it’s not because I’m like, oh f*ck
this, whatever. I care about wrestling so much, and I love
wrestling so much, and it is my dream and it is my passion.
So yes, things did bother me, and things did upset me,
because I’m only human, and I’m a human who cares about my
passion, my job. So obviously, that’s gonna come up. But at
the same time, I can’t say enough good things about the
people I got to work with, the things I got to do, all the
dreams I got to accomplish. I loved my time at WWE so much,
and especially those last six months. I got to do it with
Roxanne, with Bayley, with Giulia, Stephanie, all these
girls I became so close with and I got to travel with them
and do all these great matches and storylines with them. I
loved my time at WWE so much. Were there things that upset
me? Yes. Am I bitter or anything like that? Absolutely not.
I’m only 24 years old. Who knows what the future holds? I’ll
never burn a bridge because I don’t know what the future
holds. I don’t know if I’ll be back there one day. I don’t
know where I’ll end up. But all I know is that I loved WWE,
and I loved my time there, and I have no bad things to say
about them.”
On possibly signing with AEW:
“I’m open to whatever. I’m not in any rush to sign anywhere
right now. I’m not like sitting here waiting for that.
Because I feel like for the first time in my life, I’m
trying to be present and just enjoy life now and what’s
happening now. Because I feel like a lot of times I was
always worried about what’s next, and this business is so
go, go, go, go, go. It’s hard to sit and be present. So I
feel like I’m trying to just enjoy where I’m at right now
and not worry about that. But if the call came, I would
definitely be open to talking and whatever. I’ve watched all
the AEW shows since 2020, I never stopped watching them.
Just couldn’t talk about it. I love AEW. I love wrestling. I
want to continue to wrestle, wherever that is. If the call
comes, hey, I’m here, but if it doesn’t for a few months or
never, I don’t know. I’m not sitting here stressing about
it, but I’m open to it.”
On wanting a match with Mercedes Mone:
“That’s my current dream match. I feel like her and Bayley
were my favorites out of the four Horsewomen. I loved all of
them, but I feel like I really, really looked up to them two
specifically. I feel like I just felt the most connected to
them two because Mercedes was always writing in her notebook
too. And I feel like I look at her and see aspects of myself
too. So to be able to wrestle her now, where we both have
had our time in WWE and we’re both doing our own thing now
and doing whatever we want creatively, I feel like that is
the ultimate dream match.”
On the best advice she received from CM Punk:
“I feel like he’s told me a lot of things in very different
situations. But I feel like the number one thing is to just
drown out what everyone else is saying, because I feel like
he knows it better than anybody. Everyone has an opinion on
him, whether you absolutely love him, or you absolutely hate
him, everyone has an opinion on CM Punk. I’ve always
wondered, how does he just continue to be himself and not
give a sh*t when there’s a million different opinions from a
million different places. But he’s really, really always
helped me just understand that it doesn’t matter. People are
always going to say something. They’re going to love you or
they’re going to hate you, and either way, it doesn’t
matter, because you just have to be you and do what you feel
is right and stay true to yourself and if people support
you, great. That’s great motivation. But if they don’t, and
they don’t like you, and they don’t want to watch what you
do, or they want to watch what you do and criticize it,
that’s still your name in their mouth, and someone’s talking
about you and you’re doing something right.”