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Pro wrestling champion Steph De Lander perhaps said it best when several WWE wrestlers left the company last week.
“Getting released from WWE was the best thing that happened to my career,” she wrote on X. “It doesn’t have to be the end of the story!”
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Australian wrestler Steph De Lander poses before a match against Malaysian wrestler Nor Phoenix Diana in Puchong, Selangor, on December 11, 2022. The match was organized by APAC Wrestling. (Arif Kartono/AFP)
De Lander has lived it. The Australian native emerged as a star for Total Nonstop Action Wrestling (TNA) following her WWE departure in 2022 – where she won the TNA Digital Media Championship and had significant feuds with Matt Cardona and Sami Callihan.
Although she spent the last two years recovering from a serious neck injury, De Lander returned to the ring last month at Awesome Championship Wrestling (ACW), where she defeated Indi Hartwell and J-Rod for the Women’s Championship.
She shared some advice for recent WWE departures in an interview with Pakinomist Digital.
Steph De Lander returned to the ring at an Awesome Championship Wrestling event in March 2026. (Jay Adam Photography)
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“It’s such a different journey for everyone and you have to follow the process of how it hits you because for some people it’s their ultimate dream, for some people they were ready to go, for some people they were there for a year, they were there for 10 years,” she said. “It’s so personal. It’s so unique. But my advice would be like deal with the feelings and emotions in whatever way you need to, but if you’re going to pursue wrestling as a career, once you’ve worked it out or at least gotten to a point where you can continue to work, that’s when you’ve got to hit the ground running and go balls to the wall.
“Now you have an opportunity to rewrite your legacy. You have an opportunity to change the perspective of what people think of you and how they look at you. And when you’re on WWE, you have no control over the way you’re presented. When you’re on the indies, you have all the control. That would be my biggest piece of advice. You have so much more control over your career and your life than you think. It’s going to be difficult now than it’s going to be difficult. money.
De Lander has made a name for himself outside of WWE.
Steph De Lander makes her way to the ring at an Awesome Championship Wrestling event. (Jay Adam Photography)
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She will make her next appearance for ACW on May 16th at the MJN Convention Center in Poughkeepsie, New York.
