A former WWE coach has reflected on the impact that their release had not only on their life but the lives of their family.
Allison Danger joined WWE as a coach at the Performance Center in October 2021. The former SHIMMER star had previously worked with the company on a number of guest coaching spots.
Danger is the brother of Steve Corino who also works as a coach at the WWE Performance Center.
Despite receiving positive feedback regarding her work with WWE’s next generation, Danger was released in January 2022 as part of what the company termed restructuring.
Speaking during a recent appearance on The Sessions with Renee Paquette, Allison Danger enthusiastically recalled how much she enjoyed her coaching role.
“Even on a bad day, I loved it. Every morning, I would show up and before I would walk through the doors, I would tell myself or I would tell Steve, ‘I get to come to work today.’ Not, ‘I have to come to work, I get to come to work.’ Even on the hardest days, the roughest days at TV or just a day where things didn’t go right, I still went home and went, ‘Tomorrow is going to be a good day, we’re going to learn from whatever went bad today.’ Every day, I would wake up, throw my PC shirt on and be excited to go to work again,”
Danger continued, reflecting on the day she got the call informing her that she had been released.
“It came out of nowhere for all of us. Some of the coaches who got let go were still in the Performance Center working with people. We got it right at the end of open ring. We have scheduled classes and then open ring where people can come and meet with coaches. I normally did a lot of the open rings with (Timothy) Thatcher, (Danny) Burch, (Ace) Steele.
For me, the more I could be there, the better. I had slipped out after the first open ring. I talked to Burch and was like, ‘I hate leaving early. It’s my kid’s first day at this brand new school in Orlando.’ They had never rode the bus before because KG [her child] went to a charter school in Vegas. Never rode the bus, I’m nervous they are going to get off in the wrong neighbourhood. I was like, ‘Do we have enough coaches?’ ‘Yeah, we have enough coaches to get by, just go take care of your kid.’
I was picking KG up and we were going to have a special dinner to celebrate the first day of a new school. The phone rings, ‘Hey coach, where are you?’ ‘I just got my kid at the bus stop, do you need me to come back to the ring? I can be back in 20 (minutes).’ ‘No, we’re calling with bad news.’ ‘Is everything okay?’ ‘We just got word that they are going to restructure the Performance Center and we have to let go of eight of you. Unfortunately, they’re not going to let us continue with your contract,'”
The former Ring of Honor star explained that her immediate concern was for her brother, and whether he was also one of the releases.
“At that point, my kid is getting in the car. I feel bad for the person who called me because, it was not his fault, it was bad timing. I’m glad the person who called me was the one who called me because I think the world of him and respect him. I just froze.
‘You have to get rid of eight coaches, is my brother safe? You have to tell me, are you going to fire my brother?’ ‘No’ ‘You wouldn’t lie to me?’ ‘We’re literally releasing you and you’re asking about Steve.’ ‘What am I going to do? I can’t negotiate anything, I just need to know if he’s going to okay.’
That was my initial fear. I get off the phone, I call my husband, and he goes, ‘What’s wrong?’ ‘I just got released. They said it wasn’t my fault, there is nothing I did wrong.’ I had gotten a text a couple days before about how we were all doing a great job and how happy they were with the current roster. I was told if they could bring me back they would, in a heartbeat, to make sure I knew it wasn’t a reflection on me, it was a change from the higher-ups going, ‘we’re going to restructure,'”
Danger also opened up about how her departure impacted her whole family, commenting that she felt she had been “brought to Florida and left to die.”
“I was numb, then I cried, I was numb, then I cried, and I went, ‘what am I going to do now? Could you have not fired me a week before so I could have packed my kid up, moved up with my husband, and followed up if possible?’ It’s their first day at school, how do I rip my kid out of this?
My kid has gone through a pandemic where they didn’t go to school and didn’t see their friends for two years. They finally get back to school and it’s, ‘we’re moving to the east coast for sure,’ so now I’m ripping them out of school, they get put online, and have to struggle with being online, at home, in a new place in Florida where they have no friends and mom and dad are working these hours.
Finally, everything is settled, Christmas got cancelled because I got COVID from the December try-outs. Our first Christmas, all apart, my husband is making it down and literally, he walked in, in a mask, we watched [KG] unwrap presents, and he went straight to the airport and flew back. Then I’m back to work in three days. That’s it. I feel like I got brought to Florida and left to die.
My family is split, we’re struggling through that. I’m still five months out and nothing to show for it and no idea what I’m going to do. This has been a rock bottom year,”
Despite now being six months removed from her WWE departure, Danger revealed that she’s still struggling with what happened.
“That’s where the mindfuck comes in because there hasn’t been phone calls. I feel everybody landed on their feet but me, to the point where I’m like, ‘is the universe telling me this is it, I’m done?’ I chase the dream, I got it for three months, and I’m financially devastated, I’m emotionally, ‘what am I doing?’ Is this it for me? I have no idea what the future holds. If I weren’t a mom, it wouldn’t be so bad. What happens to me, happens to my kid. That’s the part that is the dagger,”
Allison Danger recently agreed to become a coach with Maria Kanellis’ Women’s Wrestling Army.
H/t to Fightful for the transcription.