Indi Hartwell is making her professional wrestling return to the US.
The 28-year-old’s first post US WWE match has officially been set as she’ll make her debut for House of Glory on March 15th. At this moment, Hartwell’s opponent has yet to be confirmed. Interesting enough, current TBS Champion Mercedes Mone will be making her debut for House of Glory at the exact same show. Mone also doesn’t have a confirmed opponent as of yet.
Hartwell’s US return comes a week after her first official match back at the Renegades of Wrestling show on March 9th in Melbourne, Australia. The former NXT Women’s Champion is looking to get back into the groove of the business after WWE surprisingly released Hartwell back in November. Hartwell had been there for five years and though she wasn’t a prominent act, she certainly had more TV time than most of the names on the released list.
Given how young she is, it’s not shocking that Hartwell is continuing her journey within the wrestling world. Hartwell sat down recently with MCW Pro Wrestling, and discussed her recent WWE departure, and explained what she looks for in the next promotion she signs with (courtesy of Fightful):
“I would say what I’m looking for is professionalism. Obviously, coming from WWE, they have the best production in the world. Being part of that looks amazing and it paints everyone in a good light as well. I look at those companies that have good production, and there are a lot out there that I have heard of. I haven’t booked any yet, so stay tuned.”
It should be exciting to see how the former WWE star ventures out in the independent world. Granted, Hartwell did do her indie rounds before she was picked up by WWE in 2019, with her most notable time being in Shimmer, World Series Wrestling, and Riot City Wrestling. Though Hartwell is just starting to wrestle again, she has made a couple of appearances dealing her thought process regarding her release and the former WWE star felt that the 90-day non compete clause was a necessary evil:
"It’s a lot of emotion and I guess it’s something that, if you’ve been through this before and you’ve been through getting released, it’s something you can relate to and you go through all the emotions.” Hartwell said on Busted Open Radio. “I know some people feel differently about the 90 days, but I feel the 90 days was good to have because when you lose your job, you can’t just think of something straight away. You need that time to go through everything. I went through all the emotions and talked to people and got advice from people.
There are a lot of people helping me. I’m just excited to get my confidence back and be in control. I saw Matt Cardona tweeted about being independent means that everything is in your control, whether that is success or failure. I’m excited to be in control of things now."