This TNA star opens up about the extremely negative reaction to her retirement announcement.
At TNA Victory Road, Ash By Elegance shocked the wrestling world by announcing her retirement from in-ring competition. The former Dana Brooke also vacated the Knockouts Title, which was later won by NXT’s Kelani Jordan that same night.
Last week on TNA iMPACT, Ash attempted to save Indi Hartwell during a post-match attack by Heather and M By Elegance. The segment also featured Knockouts World Champion Lei Ying Lee and her tag team partner, Xia Brookside.
However, in a major twist, Ash attacked Lei Ying Lee, getting physical for the first time in months. The Elegance Brand then teased a comeback for the former TNA Knockouts World Champion in a backstage segment, sparking speculation about a potential return to in-ring competition.
Ash By Elegance on fan reaction to her retirement announcement
During a recent interview with Denise Salcedo, Ash addressed her retirement decision and revealed that she received death threats from some fans following her announcement back in September 2025.
“To be honest with you, it’s personal, and when I feel like I’m ready to share, I will share. I’ve always been transparent about my whole life but this is something that was very personal to me. It did result in retiring or vacating the title, and I just feel as though people like to butt into business where it may not be their business. When I say personal is personal, again, I will share when the time is right for me. But just know and I hope people respect that. It’s been difficult, I must say, reading comments online,” she said.
“Majority has been super supportive, which I appreciate but, on the other side, people have been very negative. I have gotten, unfortunately, death threats and it’s scary at times because people don’t know what goes on behind closed doors and if you know me, you know how hard I work and you know how passionate I am about wrestling.
“So, all I wanted to do was continue wrestling and I turned a negative, again, into a positive. I was very blessed to do a documentary called ‘Immersed’ and while everything was the high of highs, the lows came crashing down while filming that documentary so it captured some very vulnerable moments in my career that were all real, and everything that I do, I say is true and when the timing is right, I will come out and I will share everything that has happened to me within the past couple of months. It’s just I have to be mentally okay to share that.”
On TNA iMPACT comeback tease
“I definitely didn’t think I was going to return, especially this quick. When everything had transpired, I kind of had to mentally soul-search, and I was really able to just dig deep and know that I really needed to focus on myself, where I’ve always, in my entire life, personally and business, put others first.”
“At this time, I needed to put myself first and prioritize things that were very important to my life — wrestling be the one thing and I’ve ever only been super active, whether it’d be in gymnastics, diving, bodybuilding, wrestling,” Ash by Elegance said. [H/T F4Wonline.com]
The Elegance Brand is scheduled to appear on TNA iMPACT tonight. WrestleZone will have coverage of the show at 9 PM EST.
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