Former SmackDown Star Explains Why They Quit WWE

Toni Storm’s final televised match in the WWE came in mid-December 2021 when she came up short against Charlotte Flair in a SmackDown Women’s Championship match. Shortly afterward, she requested and was granted his release from the company and wouldn’t step back in the ring again until late March on an episode of AEW Dynamite. She was recently on Renee Paquette’s The Sessions and explained why she chose to leave, saying it wasn’t the booking that pushed her away but the company’s lack of caring. 

“I’m not mad about the booking. I certainly don’t want to bury it. I don’t want to say bad things about the place. I think I had a great time there for the most part,” Storm said (h/t WrestlingNews.co). “There were times I had very great memories. It made me who I am. I feel like I grew up with them. I did the first Mae Young Classic. I did the second one. Immediately following that, NXT UK. Eventually, I worked my way up to going over to NXT. I got to do the Royal Rumble and Survivor Series randomly. I’m lucky that I got to experience all of this. I got to work with some amazing coaches. I’m not mad. I’m not angry at WWE. I don’t have anything against them. I’m sure they got bigger fish to fry than me. You know what I mean? Like, why do they care? People get let go from that place constantly. People move around constantly. It doesn’t matter if I’m there, but what matters is I’m not having a very good time, and why shouldn’t I be having a good time?”

“They don’t give a s— so why should I? This isn’t going to work. I know what’s going to happen here. I’m just going to be sent back to catering again. I’m not going to succeed here. I can just see. I know that they see me as a kid and I’m such a newbie, but I’d like to think that I’ve been around wrestling long enough to know what’s right and what’s wrong for me, and what I like and what I don’t like, and I just didn’t like it,” she continued. “I thought my whole purpose in life was to go to WWE, but then over time I realized it’s just pro wrestling that I love. It’s not a company that I love. I just love pro wrestling.”

Storm made it to the semifinals of the first Women’s Owen Hart Cup Tournament, then lost to Dr. Britt Baker. She has been feuding with both Baker and Jamie Hayter since the tournament started.