A social media outcry emerged following last week’s edition of Raw when WWE Hall of Famer Nikki Bella (now known as Nikki Garcia after she and her sister Brie dropped the Bella surname) was seemingly snubbed by the company. During the show, Michael Cole promoted the second season of USA Network’s Barmageddon but only mentioned Blake Shelton as the show’s host, despite Garcia also featuring as a host and being featured just as much on other advertising for the show.
Now in a new interview, Garcia herself has responded to the snub and the social media response surrounding it. Speaking to NBC Chicago, the former Bella Twin expressed her disappointment at the move and claimed that something like this wouldn’t happen to a man. She went on to claim that WWE has a history of attempting to “ban” female talent who speak out against the company and believes she is now one of many this has happened to.
“It’s sad. There’s obviously a lot of things I could say about that, I think more than anything, it’s disappointing,” Garcia admitted. “I worked there for 16 years and I helped pave the way for them and not only that, they’ve always been family to me. No matter what, walking away, for me, it wasn’t malicious. I wanted to do things without hearing the word no and it was just strictly business. Maybe there was some personal things that had happened over the years that also pushed me towards that, but I think more than anything, it’s disappointing because I don’t see it happen with the men.
For some reason with the women who are outspoken, and we’ve seen this with the women in the past, they just want to ban us. It’s sad because we all look at [WWE] as family and they don’t want to say my name, that’s fine, but hey, Barmageddon got a shout-out and so did Blake Shelton so that makes me happy. So many people at the WWE will always be family to me, and I communicate with so many of them, and the WWE universe will always be family to me as well as my Bella army. I’m just so appreciative for all of you and all of us that can still have the memories.”
If you use any quotes from this article, please give a h/t to Haus of Wrestling and credit NBC Chicago.