Bea Priestley was unhappy in WWE.
When the former AEW star signed with WWE in 2021, many thought that Bea Priestley would be the next big female star in the company. The 29-year-old came into WWE hot as Priestley was one of the top talents on the indie circuit who was having a string of excellent matches around the world.
After spending a lengthy period of time in NXT UK, Priestley (who was named Blair Davenport) seemed to be slowly rising through the ranks after she won the 2023 Iron Survivor Challenge. Though she failed to win the NXT Women’s Championship at New Year’s Evil, Priestly was still featured prominently until she was called up to the main roster in 2024.
But Priestley's main roster run was simply not good. She made her debut losing a qualifying Money in the Bank match and it was clear that creative didn’t have much for her as she was barely on television until her release in early 2025.
Now the former WWE star is back on the independent scene and it’s taken her some time to realize just how unhappy she was during her WWE run. Priestley recalls the moment she got the phone call about her release with Tom Campbell of Cultaholic:
“As soon as I got the call, I was like, ‘Oh, I can go back to being Bea again.’ [laughs] It’s one of those things, you don’t realize how unhappy you are until you feel happy that you got the call saying that you don’t have a job anymore. That was kind of the thing, I was like, ‘Oh, okay, maybe it was good for me to be fair.’"
But perhaps the most surprising thing about Priestley’s release was the amount of support from her colleagues once the news was out that she was one of the big names released from the roster.
“The actual outreach that I got from loads of people within WWE — It is what it is, I don’t take anything personally, it’s business, but I do think a lot of people felt bad for me because I just got called up, I didn’t even have a year on SmackDown or Raw or whatever. The amount of outreach I got from actual talent within the company basically saying how sorry they were and they wish me the best and they’re sure I’ll be back or be fine, it was nice to be like, ‘Oh wow, a lot of people do actually care about me.’"