After months of speculation about her next move, Mercedes Mone arrived in New Japan Pro-Wrestling on January 4th.
At Wrestle Kingdom 17 the star confronted IWGP Women’s Champion KAIRI and set up a match between the pair at Battle in the Valley on February 18th. It has since been confirmed that the event in San Jose has sold out, despite the match featuring Mone being the only bout announced so far.
With her NJPW adventure well under way there have also been rumours that the star will also be heading to AEW. There has been significant speculation that Mone will be teaming with Saraya as she takes on Britt Baker and Jamie Hayter on the January 11th episode of Dynamite. Not even the announcement that Saraya will be teaming with Toni Storm has stopped reports that the former Sasha Banks will also be involved.
Mercedes Mone Set For Podcast Appearance?
Interestingly, AEW star and podcast host, Renee Paquette has revealed that she has “floated” the idea of Mercedes Mone appearing on her show.
Speaking on a recent episode of The Sessions, Paquette praised the star for standing by her convictions and leaving WWE, before commenting that she would love to have her on the show.
“For me, having worked with her from such an early time, met her at NXT, watched her rise through WWE, watched those ups and downs, the times stepping out after WrestleMania after losing the tag titles, having that moment, kind of leaving for a little a while, spending some time in Japan, I believe she spent some time in Mexico. To seeing what she’s done now after whatever exactly happened on her and Trinity walking out from WWE. I really applaud the balls of this woman.
It’s not not giving a sh*t, it’s actually giving a ton of sh*ts. She cares so much about what she does. She cares so much about women’s professional wrestling. It’s not easy. I know a lot of people, if you watch from the outside, ‘yeah, it’s good, leave that company, go do whatever.’ It’s not fucking easy to walk away from making a good amount of money. I have no idea what her contract was, she’s making a lot of money, there are not a lot of opportunities in the world to do what she does as a professional wrestler, make good income, still professionally be satisfied what she’s doing.
For her to put one of those things ahead of the other and go, ‘No, I’m not satisfied with what I’m doing, this isn’t sitting right with me, I want to go out and pursue these other things.’ To have the guts to do that, and not knowing, you don’t have your hand on that other branch, you don’t know what that looks like. I don’t know if she thought, ‘Maybe I’ll eventually go to AEW.’
I’m sure she always knew she wanted to go to Japan. That must have always been somewhere that she wanted to land, whether it’s doing something in Stardom, showing up and doing something in New Japan, doing something at Wrestle Kingdom, but for her to not know what that’s going to be, and have that time. What do you do in that uncomfortable time of where do I go and what am I going to do? Am I going to do more television shows? Am I going to do movies? What am I going to do?
For her to take that time, listen, I would love to pick her brain and have her on here. I have floated the request her way [laughs], to have her on to know what that’s like to kind of sit in that down time and not know where you’re going to go and to block out that noise,”
Paquette added that it was “really cool” to see someone cares about their job as Mercedes Mone be her own woman.
“I can’t imagine how many people, whether it’s people on social media, people she knows, friends, co-workers, peers, kind of get in her head and figure out what she’s going to do. How can you walk away from all this money, you have all these opportunities.
She was, always, very much a featured player on WWE television. She’s had a great career, she’s never going to not work or be side-lined entirely. It’s really f*cking cool to see someone care so much about what they do, and receive flack for that for whatever reason, and to stick to your guns and show up and have that big moment. It’s the beginning for her. It’s the beginning of something new and you’re landing on your feet again and figuring out who you are.
Who is Mercedes Mone, how is she different from Sasha Banks? How are you going to navigate these new waters? Knowing how creative she is and the time she spends in the ring, she’s not someone who doesn’t want to go to work. She doesn’t want to not work. She’s a chick that wants to be there and put in the work and change what women’s wrestling is. Hats off to her for doing the damn thing, having her friends by her side that understand her vision, knowing what she wants to do, and executing it.”
Despite launching a new phase of her career it has been reported that WWE are “very strongly under the impression” that Mercedes Mone will return to the company.
H/t to Fightful