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Nia Jax offered to take a pay cut after John Laurinaitis informed her she was being released by WWE.
Laurinaitis works as WWE’s Head of Talent Relations, which means he is partly responsible for hiring and firing superstars. On November 4, 2021, he called Jax to let her know she was no longer needed by the company.
Jax spoke about her WWE exit on the latest episode of Renee Paquette’s The Sessions podcast. Reflecting on her conversation with Laurinaitis, the 37-year-old said her request to earn less money was turned down:
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“He was just like, ‘Hey, kid, I hate to do this.’ Instantly when he said that I was like, ‘Oh, am I getting released?’ and he said, ‘Yeah, I’m so sorry. Due to budget cuts…’ you know the whole spiel. I was just like, ‘Oh, okay, well I’ll take a pay cut if that’s what’s needed,’ just because I knew it was a whole script.’ He’s like, ‘Oh, that’s not it.’”
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Following Jax's pay cut offer, Laurinaitis told her that the company simply wanted to make a change and release her.
Nia Jax initially thought John Laurinaitis was going to extend her WWE break
Nia Jax took a break from wrestling after losing to Shayna Baszler on the September 20, 2021 episode of RAW.
The former RAW Women’s Champion asked John Laurinaitis on November 3, 2021 if her break could be extended until January 2022. However, the following day, she received her release:
“I’ll never forget, I hit Johnny up and I was like, ‘Hey, I know that my break is coming up but I don’t feel right, right now. Is there any way we can kind of extend it to Rumble?’ Then I was like, ‘I know I’ll be in a better place,’ whatever, whatever. That was on a Wednesday I hit him up about that. Thursday, he called me [to talk about the release].”
Jax also revealed in the interview that she turned down the opportunity to return to WWE as an entrant in the 2022 Women’s Royal Rumble match.
Please credit The Sessions and give a H/T to Sportskeeda Wrestling for the transcription if you use quotes from this article.
