Saraya Opens Up About Her Final 'Depressing' Years With WWE

When an injury in a 2017 match forced her into an earlier retirement, Saraya — who was then working as Paige in WWE — was hopeful to begin a second career as an on-air wrestling general manager. But in an interview with Chris Jericho on the "Talk Is Jericho" podcast, the AEW star recalled finding herself in a situation that became progressively worse.

"I got to be ["SmackDown"] GM and I loved it, but then that kind of got cut short," she said. "And I never really understood why because it was a great gig and I feel like everyone liked it. I never got anything negative from it, but it was just shocking."

Saraya said that "SmackDown" lead writer "Road Dogg" Brian James called her the day she was scheduled to fly to an event to let her know her role as GM was coming to an end.

"Road Dogg is so sweet and he's always trying to baby me," she said. "And he was just like, 'So, we're probably not going to do the GM anymore, so you won't have to come to work tomorrow.' And then he decided that I was going to come and do a goodbye speech as GM, which I thought was really sweet, too. So, I ended up like flying in, doing that first segment of the show, and then flying back."

After that, she said she repeatedly tried in vain to pitch WWE with ideas on how she could stay involved, including doing media appearances and an onscreen managerial role.

"But I ended up sitting in my house for three or four years," she said. "And that's the most depressing thing, because you just feel like you're completely useless. And then you can't go and do anything else because you're under a contract where even though you're an independent contractor, you still have to get permission to do stuff. And then it would get turned down."

If you use any of the quotes in this article, please credit "Talk Is Jericho" and provide a h/t to Wrestling Inc. for the transcription.