AEW Star Reveals Real Reason For Shock Retirement

One AEW star has explained the real reason behind their retirement from the ring aged just 39.

Madison Rayne is best known for her time in TNA, where she was a five-time TNA Women’s Knockout Champion and three-time Women’s Knockout Tag Team Champion. In 2022, Rayne joined AEW as a coach and a wrestler, but now she’s decided to hang up her boots.

Rayne announced her in-ring retirement after she lost in a tag team match that saw her team with Deonna Purrazzo to face Billie Starkz and Diamante in Ring of Honor at the end of 2025.

Madison Rayne Focusing On Other AEW Role

Speaking on the Boots to Boots podcast, Madison Rayne explained why she’d decided to retire from the ring, as she gives her all to her other AEW job:

You have to give 100 per cent of yourself to both of them, and giving 100 per cent of myself to two separate things in one day was challenging.

But also, I’ve always had in the back of my mind this little voice telling me ‘Get out and retire and know when enough is enough.’ People do it all the time, they outstay their welcome in the wrestling business, and I didn’t want to be somebody that did that.

At this point, when my full-time job is coach/producer and I love it so much, it was like these two things both telling me it’s time to celebrate your career instead of trying to prolong it past what is necessary. I’ve done everything that, for me, I needed to do to fill my cup and feel fulfilled.

Rayne noted that she had previously stepped away from the ring already, during a time when the wrestling business seemed more precarious than ever due to global events:

I semi-retired a few years ago because I thought it was the right thing during COVID. I got my business degree, I got my job selling mortgages, I thought, ‘this was my career path now, this is my life, let me force myself to step away from wrestling.’ And it didn’t feel right, it wasn’t the right time.