Saraya, better known to WWE fans as Paige, remains a free agent following a largely disappointing run in AEW. Her return to the ring was celebrated by fans following a career-ending neck injury, only for Tony Khan to largely drop the ball on her booking.
We still don't know what's next for Saraya, though a WWE return seems inevitable. That's something she's expressed interest in on multiple occasions, though the multi-time Women's Champion hasn't closed the door on stepping back into an AEW ring either.
During an interview with Women's Wrestling Talk, Saraya confirmed that there are no hard feelings between her and the AEW President.
"I was, alright, time for me to bow out. Tony was amazing with it. It ended up being mutual, which is great," she revealed. "He was extremely supportive about my future endeavors and he encouraged me and the door was left open, which is great."
Elaborating on her decision to leave the company, Saraya said, "It was just a lot of brainstorming on my time off where I was, okay, now it’s time for me to bow out gracefully."
Talking on her own show, Rulebreakers with Saraya, the former AEW star reflected on shooting down a romance angle with Daddy Magic.
"They wanted me to do a love storyline with him, and I've managed to go my whole career without doing a love storyline — and I wasn't going to start then, you know. They were like, 'No, all he's going to do is kiss you.' And I had a boyfriend at the time, so I was just like, 'I can't do it, you guys. I just can't do it.' So I turned that down."
"Other than that, there's not really anything else storyline-wise that I've turned down," Saraya admitted. "It's just that if I have to kiss someone and I have a boyfriend, I just don't think it's right or appropriate."
"I've never really had them come up to me and be like, 'What do you think of this? You want to kiss somebody today?' Like, I've never had that ... until I got to AEW. And then they were like, 'Can you kiss Daddy Magic?' And I love Daddy Magic. Good guy," she concluded.
So, yes, Khan had one of the greatest women's wrestlers of all-time on his roster and decided to try and shoehorn her into what sounds like a pretty lame romance angle. During her stint in AEW, Saraya feuded with Ruby Soho and got involved in her relationship with Cool Hand Ang, Daddy Magic's tag team partner, but never interacted with him.
Do you think Saraya did the right thing by refusing to get involved with a romance storyline?