Zelina Vega Was 'Shocked' By WWE Release, Says The Call Came From TKO

Amongst the list of many stars who have parted ways with WWE following WrestleMania 42, the two who fans have been the most shocked about have been Aleister Black and Zelina Vega. Especially in light of Black, who was released nearly a year to the day after his return to WWE, while Vega had a Women's United States Championship reign just last year.

Taking to Twitch after the news broke, Vega revealed that the call to be cut came from TKO and not WWE, and because the call came from the parent company and not Stamford, she knew it was dire before she even answered the call. 

"5:09 PM is when I found out," she claimed. Vega also confirmed that she is under a non-compete clause and won't be able to return to pro wrestling for 90 days following her release yesterday.

"Not even like, okay, I was off TV necessarily all the time. I was off TV for a bit, if you would've let 'Zelina' like be 'Zelina' in the way I had envisioned, or we had envisioned, for this new character, y'all would've f**king loved it," she said, claiming there were many plans she had for her character.

At the same time, Vega isn't happy about how the news of her release broke, and expressed her anger about outlets like "Fightful" for getting ahead of her with the news. 

"I would've appreciated it if Sean Ross Sapp or whoever the f**k announced it could've at least given me the decency to do it myself first," she exclaimed, but thanked all the fans who have stood by her since 2020.

If you use any quotes from this article, please credit Zelina Vega's Twitch channel and provide a h/t to Wrestling Inc. for the transcription.