Earlier this month, Mickie James was among the Superstars released by WWE in a mass culling of talent. It was a shame, but the company hasn't done much with the former Women's Champion lately (she's not been used regularly on TV since mid-2020), so it wasn't a surprise in many respects.
She was undrafted last year and has instead been working commentary and doing hosting on shows like NXT and Main Event as WWE looked to seemingly transition James away from an in-ring role.
Now, she's shared her first comments about being released by WWE.
"Obviously now, I'm not with WWE. I got my 'future endeavour' on Thursday," she started. "I don't want it to ever feel like I'm not thankful or not grateful because I've had so much fun and the girls in the locker room and I'm grateful for so many experiences, but I honestly feel in the last two years that I've been comfortably uncomfortable."
"I've been trying to be pigeonholed or fit into a square mold of 'This is what we want you to be' and 'This is what we want you to believe you are' and I'm just not that. A lot has been happening in the last two years and I've been in this little space. I'm not going to get super deep on it."
In other words, WWE had very different ideas for James in WWE than she did. As a result, it seems likely she was happy to be released and may have even requested that. It's possible she'll talk more about that moving forward, but for now, there's a lot you can take from these comments.
Fingers crossed James lands on her feet regardless of where that might be in the wrestling world.