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A former TNA Champion made a surprising confession about being passed on by WWE. For many wrestlers, being a part of World Wrestling Entertainment’s roster is one of the biggest career goals. This dream has now become closer to achieving for many in TNA, as they have had a working relationship with the Stamford-based promotion. This allowed many of their talents to make an appearance on NXT and vice versa, and with some of their top stars such as Jordynne Grace, Joe Hendry, and more recently Mike Santana jumping ship to the Stamford-based promotion once their contract with Total Nonstop Action Wrestling came to an end. However, this is seemingly not a sentiment that is shared by one of the biggest stars of the Nashville-based promotion, that being former Knockouts Champion Tessa Blanchard. Former TNA Star Tessa Blanchard Explains Why She Was Glad That WWE Didn’t Sign Her Tessa Blanchard made the surprising admission during an interview on the WrestleMagicPod podcast. Blanchard spoke about her time at WWE in 2016 at the Mae Young Classic, where she was looked at as one of the prospects who the Stamford-based promotion would sign, but it did not end up happening. Blanchard recalled the time she had a tryout at the Stamford-based promotion, though she does not remember the exact time, when William Regal pulled her aside for a conversation, where he asked her an important question and revealed that she was not being signed. She said: “I remember back at my WWE tryout in 2014, William Regal told me, I think it was, it may have been the Mae Young Classic that he told me this, but William Regal, I remember us being in the Performance Center was the thing, and he told me, ‘Tess, let me talk to you for a second.’ And he pulls me off to the side, and he’s like, ‘Okay, uh, if we did not sign you right now, would you still be a wrestler?’ And I was like, ‘Well, yeah, I love this.’ And he’s like, ‘Okay, well then I need you to go out there and get more experience.’” The former Impact World Champion said that initially the news crushed her, but she followed Regal’s advice and wrestled all over the world to gain experience and be a more well-rounded wrestler who could go in the ring and deliver a great match with any opponent. She said: “I remember feeling kind of defeated, but I went to Japan. I went to China. I went to Australia. I went to Austria. I went to the UK. I trained in all these countries. I learned every style. I wanted to be the most versatile wrestler that I could be, so no matter who I was in the ring with, what style, what country, it didn’t matter. I could go out there and have a great match.” The 31-year-old also confessed that she never imagined working at the Nashville-based promotion; given her family name, she assumed that putting in a good performance was all that she needed to get signed with the Stamford-based promotion; however, she accepted the fact that life had other plans for her after her conversation with Regal. Blanchard also stated that it was not the case that the Stamford-based promotion did not know her, as she had filled in as an extra, took part in the Mae Young Classic, and even had a role in Paige’s biographical movie – Fighting With My Family, and the fact that she still did not get signed lit a fire in her to prove them wrong. She said: “I never thought TNA would be a part of my story. I’m a Blanchard. I’m going to start wrestling, I’m going to be the best that I can be, and I’m going to go to WWE. That was my path. Sometimes the path that God has for you is way different than the path that you have for yourself. That was my case 100%. I’ve done the Mae Young Classic. I did Fighting with my Family. I did, like, they know who I am, and if they’re not picking me up right now, like I believe in myself to be a star, and I’m going to show them.” You can hear the entire conversation in the video below: Blanchard had a successful career after this rejection as she won gold across multiple promotions such as WOW, Shimmer, and AAA, to name a few. Blanchard had recently asked for and was granted her release from the Nashville-based promotion as they had asked her to choose between them and CMLL. Whether this leads her to get a call from the Stamford-based promotion in the future remains to be seen.