Shayna Baszler Discusses Life After Her WWE Release, Says She Still Has a Good Relationship With WWE & Isn’t Officially Hired

During a recent interview with Insight With Chris Van Vliet, former WWE Superstar Shayna Baszler discussed her current relationship with WWE and if she has any employment status with them. Although Baszler was released by WWE earlier this year, she’s still done some work behind the scenes for the company.

Baszler confirmed during her conversation with Van Vliet that although she’s done guest coaching for WWE, she’s not officially hired by them at the moment. She’s spoken about being open to a producer role with WWE in the past. Below are some highlights from Insight:

Shayna Baszler on Busing Busier Than Ever Following Her WWE Release

“Well, actually, strangely enough, I feel like I’m busier and away from home more than I was before, just by the nature of taking every available opportunity there is to just do everything that I want to do. So I don’t know.”

On Her Current Work

“I mean, I’m still taking indie dates and doing stuff like that. I’ve been doing a lot of like guest coaching and shadowing producing at NXT. So pretty much if I’m not on the road, I’m helping out there if I can.”

Shayna Baszler on her Current WWE Status

“I’m not officially hired, but I have a good relationship with them. I’m officially guest coaching when the opportunity comes. I don’t hate it. I actually like it a lot more than I thought I would. So, how that all came about is that Daniel Bryan, it was during COVID, and Daniel Bryan was always the guy sitting in Gorilla. It’s kind of like, I don’t know if it’s still the same way now, but it’s kind of like only the top guys can sit back on a headset in Gorilla. There’s just too much; it’s not enough room, so you don’t want to crowd the place. But he was talking to me about, if you ever get a chance to sit in the truck or sit on a headset, it completely changed my wrestling. I feel like my wrestling went to another level, because you get to see what they look for, and how they call things, and the time it takes. So you feel weird making a face for too long, but they have just TV stuff.”

On If Her Coaching Work Could Become a Full-Time Role

“If I don’t suck too bad at the guest part of it. You know, it’s pretty smart of them, because during my 90 days, I’d be lying if I didn’t say I wasn’t a little salty at first, but I kind of was like, You know what? What’s the worst that’s gonna happen? I hate it, and then I tell them I don’t want to do it? So let’s just go in and do it. But they’re smart to have done that, because then I got emotionally invested in the athletes that are there, that I’m working with, and some of the girls, even some of the guys, seeing their growth and seeing collaboration ideas. I’ve been a talent, so I know how to go from creative to the talent and kind of bridge the gap of what creative is looking for and what the talent wants to do. So, I don’t know, I got emotionally invested in everything, so they kind of got me coming back. But yeah, it’s been a lot more rewarding. I’ve enjoyed it a lot more than I thought I would, to be honest.”

On if She Feels Like Her Career as a WWE Superstar Is Over

“Never say never in this business. I mean, weirder things have happened, right? If I get over with something crazy on the Indies or something, and I get an offer. It’s a strange question, because I don’t know that I’m ever going to be someone that’s like, Yeah, I’m ready to be done. I’ll always feel like I can go.”

On if She Got a Call to Appear on Raw or SmackDown While at the WWE PC

“I’d be open to something like that, even when they had, it wasn’t in-ring, but on NXT Homecoming. I was there that day, shadowing, and they just came up to me and they were like, ‘Hey, so it’s Homecoming, and we just thought it’d be cool if you appeared in this segment.’ I was like, ‘Well, I got to run home and get my cool jacket’, and kind of just did that. So I wouldn’t be against something like that, but on the other side of that, I wanna knee jerk and say I’m 45, but it’s not even my age, it’s the miles. I had 20 years of MMA, I had over 10 years total of pro wrestling. So it’s just about a quality-of-life thing for my body. I have found on the Indies that for right now, things change a lot with how I feel. But for right now, I don’t have that same indie hustle I had in me as before. I don’t want to lug a checked bag of T-shirts like Cardona, that dude has hustle. That dude makes money, and it works. There’s people like that on the Indies, and I’m just like I just want to wrestle. I did that [hustle], and I wouldn’t say I loved it to the same degree, but I didn’t mind it. But I think now that I’m just at a different stage where the wrestling I’m doing now is less about let’s see what I can do and get as far as I can go. It’s more to whet that creative appetite in me. But also, this sounds so cheesy, I really feel this sort of responsibility to kind of pass on what I have to give and to keep alive this shoot style catch wrestling, it’s just not something you see, especially out of the women. I think that I am finding that I’d have more concern for wanting to carry this banner than it is about all right, I want to make all this money doing this now. Maybe some of it is that I know I have the coaching thing as a safety net. So whereas before it was like, gotta make this work. So maybe there’s something to that, but I don’t know. My purpose in wrestling is different than it was when I first started.”

Baszler did make a WWE NXT TV appearance in September, offering advice to Zaria and Sol Ruca during a backstage segment.