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In the world of pro-wrestling aka sports entertainment, injuries are a part and parcel for the wrestler, but it can massively alter their career trajectory in more ways than one. Recently, one of the ex-WWE superstars, who went by the name Shotzi, revealed her experience recently in an exclusive interview about how the ACL injury last year led to her not getting enough opportunities upon returning to the promotion due to Chief Content Officer Paul “Triple H” Levesque giving up on her.
Notably, Shotzi’s career in WWE took off at NXT in 2019, winning the Women’s Tag Team Championships with Ember Moon following her stint in Tough Enough, the reality TV show created by the promotion, four years prior. After being named as the NXT Breakout Star of the Year 2020, she joined the WWE main roster in 2021, and gained popularity among the fans and became a consistent face on weekly TV.
But her WWE career started to come crashing down in early 2024 upon suffering an unfortunate ACL injury, keeping her on the shelf for the majority of the year. Upon returning to WWE in December of the same year, she featured in a storyline with Tatum Paxley and Gigi Dolin before being slowly phased out of the promotion with her contract expiring In May 2025.
I always thought that Hunter really believed in me, so it was a little disappointing: Shotzi on WWE release
During a recent appearance on the Rulebreakers podcast with Saraya, the 33-year-old talked about the attitude of Triple H towards her after returning from the ACL injury last year. She was quoted as saying, as per Covalent, “I had just come back from an ACL tear. So, coming back from a huge injury and not being on TV for almost a year, I was kind of not surprised. They’re just like we lasted a year without you, so we’ll just let you go now that your contract is up. In that aspect, I wasn’t really surprised.”
“I don’t know, I always thought that Hunter really believed in me, so it was a little disappointing. Yeah, I just felt like, dang, they gave up on me. I was in such a bad space for a few years with everything that I was going through and I was coming back from injury so much stronger, not just physically but mentally too,” said Shotzi about how she did everything to make it work in WWE, but it wasn’t to be.
