Backstage News On AQA's AEW Status

Last night on "AEW Dynamite," the AEW women's division took an interesting turn, with Saraya and Toni Storm going over to the dark side after Storm defeated Willow Nightingale in singles action. The turn seems to draw a line in the sand between talents like Saraya and Storm, who both wrestled in WWE before joining AEW, and AEW originals such as Nightingale, Hikaru Shida, Britt Baker, and AEW Women's World Champion Jamie Hayter. One former WWE talent that won't be siding with Saraya and Storm, however, is AQA. 

Fightful Select is reporting that the Booker T trainee, who signed with AEW a little less than a year ago, has had her contract expire with the promotion. As such, she has also been removed from the AEW roster page.

This will not come as a shock to many, as AQA hasn't been in an AEW ring since June 2022, and hasn't wrestled anywhere since a match in Warrior Wrestling that same month. Shortly after, AQA announced on social media that she was stepping away from wrestling effective immediately, stating she wanted to take some time to reflect and choose what path was best for her. She has not been active on Twitter since the statement.

Before joining AEW, AQA had wrestled in WWE under the NXT brand, making her debut in March 2021 under the name Zayda Ramier. She wrestled in NXT for several months before she was forced out of action in July after a health episode while training at the WWE Performance Center. She would later reveal WWE doctors medically disqualified her from competing, despiting passing several tasks, and she wouldn't wrestle for WWE again before being released in November.