Details on Tessa Blanchard’s Status On Joining Either AEW or WWE

There are rumors swirling online suggesting that Tessa Blanchard and possibly her husband DAGA are on their way to All Elite Wrestling (AEW). However, some of them come from unconfirmed reports and the top news sources are being quiet about Tessa’s status. That said, many are assuming that Dave Meltzer’s silence on Tessa is confirmation of her joining AEW provided his lack of reporting on Matt Hardy, Brodie Lee, Miro, Sting, and Paul Wight’s AEW debut surprises.

An independent source close to Impact Wrestling (also has a few AEW sources) has indicated that various wrestling talents in AEW close with the female wrestlers who accused Tessa of bullying or being a racist have been very vocal backstage about Tessa joining AEW. They have been putting in the word against her to the EVPs, particularly Kenny Omega who mostly oversees the Women’s Division. This appears to be the primary reason why Tessa Blanchard has not joined AEW for the past year along with the reported incident involving female wrestler Black Rose, where Tessa reportedly spit in her face and called her a racial slur, that keeps resurfacing online.

With AEW now working with Impact Wrestling, this source indicated that Tessa’s 2020 exit from Impact was over money and potentially nothing else. Tessa’s Impact contract expired during the Spring of 2020 and provided that she was the Impact champion at the time, she wanted to be paid like a top star in the company. These negotiations were in the midst of the COVID-19 hurricane that slowed down the economy. My source indicated that Anthem, owner of Impact Wrestling, was freezing its budget for 2020 due to economic worries. Whether or not Anthem balked at paying Tessa more money due to her new main event status hasn’t been indicated and Tessa could have just had bad timing to have a contract expire. As you may know, AEW has been working with Impact Wrestling recently.

WWE does have interest in her but are presenting low money offers and want her to start at the bottom of the ladder to work her way up, the source indicates. There was some indication last year that WWE wouldn’t treat her as a big deal and she’d have to return to NXT. There is a chance that knowing AEW hasn’t signed her yet, WWE has the leverage financially. Also, as shown by recent events, the WWE doesn’t feel that AEW is a threat enough to hoard talent away from AEW. Provided her bad experience previously working for NXT, Tessa is very hesitant to rejoin the WWE for lower money and a lack of prestige.

Provided this, here are the summaries of the two scenarios:

(a) If the EVPs (Cody, Bucks, Omega) + Tony Khan can disregard the opinions of their own talent about Tessa Blanchard or believe that she has evolved, she could join AEW soon. Remember, AEW does employ her father Tully Blanchard. Her “heat” with Impact/Anthem was about money and the recent AEW/Impact relationship shouldn’t be an issue.

(b) If WWE would just treat Tessa Blanchard as a bigger deal, that could be an option, though her preference is not to return. All indications are that the WWE’s money offers are low and they’d want her to work her way up to the top.

If you have been following Tessa Blanchard’s Instagram, you’ll observe that she’s in peak physical shape right now and posts pictures & videos of her working out. She’s ready to work.