After months of being away from in-ring competition, former WWE Divas Champion Paige announced her retirement from the WWE.
Following a match between Sasha Banks and Mandy Rose, Paige stood alongside her Absolution faction members made her announcement. She thanked the fans for supporting her, thanked Daniel Bryan for giving her hope after he returned to wrestling at WrestleMania 34 on Sunday and finally thanked Edge for showing her that there is life outside of wrestling.
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#ThankYouPaige 😢 pic.twitter.com/DwQakyWTDv
— WrestlinGifs (@WrestlinGifs) April 10, 2018
“I want to thank WWE for letting me do this, and every single one of you for the past four years,” Paige said. “This, New Orleans, for years ago is where I debuted and won the Divas Championship and four years later New Orleans is where I want to retire. So I want to say thank you to every single one of you.”
She finished her speech by saying the ring will always be “her house” then placed her shirt in the middle of the ring and walked out.
“I love you all so much,” Paige siad. And yes, this will always be my house!”
Born in Norwich, England and raised in a family of wrestlers, Paige signed a developmental deal with the WWE back in April 2011. She became a mainstay of the NXT developmental system when it took over for Florida Championship Wrestling in 2012 and was the first NXT Women’s Champion.
As mentioned in her speech, Paige debuted on Monday Night Raw the night after WrestleMania XXX in New Orleans, defeating AJ Lee to become the Divas Champion in April 2014. She then went on to feud with the likes of Lee and the Bella Twins before becoming an integral part of the “Women’s Revolution” in 2015 alongside Banks, Charlotte Flair and Becky Lynch.
Between a wellness policy suspension, personal issues and recovering from major neck surgery, Paige was gone from the WWE from August 2016 through November 2017. Upon her return, “The Anti-Diva” turned heel and led the Absolution faction to wreak havoc on the Raw women’s roster for weeks. However during a house show match in Long Island on December 27, Paige took a kick to the back of the head from Banks and had to be helped out of the ring.
It was reported shortly afterwards that Paige’s neck injury would prevent her from getting cleared by WWE’s medical staff to ever wrestle again.
