Steph De Lander Says TNA Tried To Get Mance Warner To Stay

Steph De Lander says that TNA called Mance Warner to try and get him to stay after they both quit the company. As noted, De Lander and Warner chose to quit TNA after the company refused to let De Lander return to the ring. De Lander has said she was cleared by WWE’s surgeon but TNA would not relent.

Discussing the matter on TMZ Inside the Ring, De Lander went further into detail on how TNA handled the matter. She noted that when she sought more “sports-specific treatment” from them, they referred her to talking to Steve Austin or Kurt Angle who have had neck injuries. She also talked about how TNA called Warner after the fact and tried to get Warner to stay. You can see the highlights below:

On TNA’s Response To Her Asking For More Treatment About Her Neck:

“All I was looking for was some guidance of getting back in the ring. Because it’s one thing for a normal person who has an injury to recover to a level of being okay to get through day-to-day life. It’s completely different for a professional athlete to recover to a level of being able to go through full contact sport. And that’s what my argument was, I was trying to explain to them like, ‘Hey guys, I know I’m going to my local yokel rehab center down the road, but I don’t feel like I’m getting enough specialized care to get to a point where I can start wrestling again.’

“So I was asking them like, ‘Hey, is there any other places that you guys can send me to do my rehab?’ I was trying to just get some more sports-specific treatment. And you know, the response to that from someone very high in the company was, ‘Well, maybe you should DM Stone Cold Steve Austin or Kurt Angle and ask them for advice.'”

On Warner Quitting In Solidarity:

“Yeah, so I mean, Mance and I had spoken about it beforehand, and I basically said, ‘If they tell me I can’t wrestle, I’m quitting on the spot.’ And he was like, ‘Oh, I am too.’ But they did kind of try to — like, they called me, I had the phone call. I asked [for] my release on the phone call. I said, ‘Send it to me today.’

“And then they called Mance and were kind of like, ‘Hey, you can stay,’ and he was like, ‘I’m not.’ So it was a little bit — Mance was told he could stay but also the other thing too is our contracts were up in three months and I didn’t think we were gonna be renewed anyways at that point. So it felt like there was nothing else for us here. We need to leave and we need to leave now.”

If you use any of the quotes in this article, please credit TMZ Inside The Ring with a h/t to 411mania.com for the transcription.