Former Divas Champion Kaitlyn (Celeste Bonin) believes a WWE return would "make a lot of sense":
"It's interesting, I'm 39 now, I'll be 40 in a few months, and I'm at the top of my game. I'm in the best shape I've ever been in, my body feels great, I'm more confident in who I am, my voice, than ever before.
"I'm open to it. It's not like 'Okay, this is my number one goal, to get back in a WWE ring,' but I think that it would make sense.
"Now, I'm such an evolved person versus who I was then. I just have such a deeper understanding of what pro-wrestling is, and the artistry of it, and the connection with the fans.
"I think it would make a lot of sense. I feel like I would do great, I haven't been in the ring in a while, but some of that stuff comes back pretty easily. I'm also just smarter with how I would wrestle, and who I would be on the show."
(TMZ's Inside The Ring)
AJ Lee spoke about how she was ‘genuinely and pleasantly’ surprised to see how treatment of mental health issues had shifted in pro wrestling since her retirement from the ring.
“I’m really proud of how far it’s come because… I’ve been pretty open about how like my last year wrestling was my worst mental health year. Like I looked like everything in the world and I’m champion and all this stuff, but I was so deeply depressed, and part of, you know, my journey after was like finding what’s the right treatment for me and becoming a mental health advocate and like becoming a keynote speaker and like really trying to send this message to not just people in sports, but also, like, communities of color, like, us, like, as a Latina, like, we don’t talk about our mental health. Like, it’s not a thing that’s, like, accepted in our culture, and there’s so many barriers to treatment. So that’s been, like, a huge part of the journey is sort of opening up people’s eyes to when you come from a certain socioeconomic background or cultural background or there’s language barriers or, like, you’re in a health care desert, like there’s all these different barriers just to get in the door, and then to not even be like represented in clinical trials and research. It’s been this like 10 year journey of trying to sort of make people aware of how important that is on so many different levels, and then to come back into wrestling and see that they have also opened up their mind. When the first thing I wanted to make sure was going to work was, is my mental health protected? Do I feel safe here? Are you guys aware of what that means to need you know, mental health time off or sort of just like, is that something that is a priority for that to be a priority? The conversation was really cool in a way that like, I couldn’t even reveal my diagnosis 10 years ago, but now it’s like, you know, a part of my contract. So like that is a really cool, beautiful thing. I hope all sports, you know, can incorporate that because it is such a a different, you know, like you were saying, you do need such exceptional internal health and mental health to just perform safely. So I was so genuinely and pleasantly surprised to see that shift.”
(The Match-Up)