Steph De Lander On How Wrestling Is Different For Her After WWE NXT Release

Former WWE star Steph De Lander has had a tremendous run on the indies alongside Matt Cardona in recent months, and she has discussed what has changed from her "WWE NXT" stint to her success on the indies.

"I would say the biggest difference is just my confidence and knowing myself. Knowing what I want and what I want the people to see of me and think of me, and just like the portrayal of what I am," said the former WWE star in her appearance on "Insight with Chris Van Vliet." "I feel so much more connected to what I'm doing and my character and all of that than I did previously when I was in 'NXT.' So I think you can just see if you compare my performances in WWE and on the independents, I think the biggest thing is I look a lot more and I feel a lot more sure of myself."

When asked by Van Vliet what she attributes the change to, De Lander stated that taking a break from wrestling was instrumental in finding her love for wrestling once again.

"I wasn't enjoying what I was doing and I didn't feel right so I took a break. I took six months off," revealed De Lander. "It got to a point where I wasn't motivated, I wasn't enjoying what I was doing, and I knew continuing to work through that and wrestle while I was in that mindset was actually going to be detrimental to my career."

De Lander added that being released by WWE was a huge shock to her, and taking a step back to assess what she wants from her career has helped her current indie run. The Australian wrestler, who was known as Persia Pirotta in "NXT," had a year-long stint with WWE before being released in April 2022.