Before announcing her break from wrestling, Elayna Black had a conversation with CM Punk that assured her she was making the right decision.
The former Cora Jade announced last month that she has canceled her upcoming indie bookings and will be taking the rest of 2025 to focus on her mental health. By removing herself from wrestling for a bit, Black is hoping that the love she once had for the industry will return.
Black grew up idolizing Punk and has now formed a friendship with him. While appearing on TMZ’s Inside the Ring podcast, Black said Punk was one of the people who gave her advice about the break, telling her she doesn’t owe anyone anything and should do what is best for her. It’s advice that Black found especially helpful given that Punk is someone who once fell out of love with wrestling before later returning.
“Yes, of course, he’s like another person I go to for anything,” Black responded when asked if she still speaks with Punk. “Like, he’s one of the people that, honestly, because I told you I was going back and forth for a few weeks… I knew I needed to take a break. I was just scared to do it because I didn’t want to let anybody down. I was scared of the backlash. I was scared of promoters who had already booked the show, and I just didn’t want to let anybody down and I was putting everybody else before me. That just tends to be how I am. Like, I put other people’s feelings ahead of mine. And for once, I just had to kind of realize I needed to put my feelings first. But it was so hard. It didn’t matter how many people said that to me and agreed with me and were telling me all these things.
“But I like broke down one day and we had a conversation, me and [Punk] on the phone. Because I was like, hey, I need your advice — because he’s been through it all. He left WWE for 10 years and hated WWE, said crazy things, and nobody ever thought he was coming back. He’s found his love for wrestling again. He’s helped me with everything. So I always know that I can come to him. But specifically this thing, I was like, I know he’s going to have good insight for me and give me a good outlook on it — and he did. And he sat there and listened to me. And he’ll always listen to me, which I’m very grateful for because I’m someone who sometimes acts — I get very passionate, so sometimes I want to act on emotion. But he is very good at helping me see things from like a different side without the emotional aspect of it. And from experience, obviously, like I just said, he left WWE forever.
“So I was just asking him if he found his love for it again after the break and stuff like that. And so many things that he said to me in that conversation really helped me. And he told me, like, I don’t owe anybody anything and I don’t have to stick in something that’s no longer serving me. And that really stuck with me.”
Black said it’s been weird to step away from wrestling given that it’s something she’s cared about for so long. She fell in love with wrestling as a kid, started training at 15 years old, and is now 24. Wrestling has given her so many great things, but it was also causing her pain internally, emotionally, and physically. Before this break, she felt depressed and was having panic attacks before every match. But she already feels so much better after only a month away.
“I have no plans on retiring, I’m taking this break,” Black said. “If I wouldn’t have taken this break, maybe I would have retired because I would have went nuts and run off the rails and I couldn’t have done it, but that’s why I’m taking the break, because I do love wrestling and I do want to have fun again and enjoy it and not just be upset about it all the time or feel like constant negativity about it. I want to love it again the way I did as a kid. I want to feel that again. And so I feel like even now, I already miss it and I’ve only taken like a month off, so I’m sick in the head like all wrestlers [laughs].”
Black has a wrestling-related appearance coming up at WrestleCade in November, where she’ll be signing autographs and meeting fans but not competing in the ring. She would love to be back wrestling by the end of the year or start of 2026 but isn’t holding herself to that.
In May of this year, Black — who had been competing in NXT — was released from her WWE contract. She briefly returned to the indies following her release before taking this break, and she’s also launched an OnlyFans page as another post-WWE source of income.
