Ex-WWE Star Felt Lied To By Management Before Release

A former WWE superstar was told that she would be in a major storyline, but she was fired, and the role was given to somebody else.

Blair Davenport is a veteran British wrestler who worked for WWE from June 2021 until her release in February 2025, shortly after the Royal Rumble. Away from the company, she uses the name Bea Priestley on the independent wrestling circuit.

In an interview with That Sweet Pop with Dion McCracken & Brad Lewis, Priestley spoke about how things changed for her creatively after going to SmackDown in the 2024 WWE Draft in the spring.

“This isn’t going to sound how I mean it to sound because I’m very happy for all of my friends. It’s just a reflection and my experience. Kiana (James) and Lyra (Valkyria) go to Raw, and I go to SmackDown. Smackdown, you’re lucky if you get two girls’ matches on one SmackDown anyway, because SmackDown was only two hours at the time, and Raw is three. Lyra, straight away, is doing the Queen of the Ring tournament stuff, and that was awesome for her.

They did have some idea with me, but two weeks after I got moved to SmackDown, the head writer changed to a different head writer, so all of my initial conversations weren’t known. The general writer that I had, she had only just been promoted to a writer, so I think she was a little worried to push for me because she was new in that role. I think she was going with the flow rather than being like, ‘Why don’t we do something with Bea.’

No disrespect to anyone, because I was the same way on SmackDown. I wasn’t going to step on anyone’s toes. I was going to do as I was told because I’m new here.

There were times when I was like, ‘I don’t know what’s going on.’ There were talks about tagging with Isla and Alba and us being a trio in the Unholy Union because we were doing six-woman tags against Bianca, Jade, and Naomi. That was a conversation. ‘We might put you with these guys, but we’re not sure.’ It got to the end of the year and I had a triple threat with Bianca and Chelsea, that was my last match.

Blair Davenport Expected To Join Stable Before WWE Release

As she continued, the former Blair Davenport gave her version of the story about possibly joining Chelsea Green’s Secret Hervice group.

“I did a backstage with Piper in January and that was alluding to me doing stuff with Chelsea and Piper in the Secret Hervice. I was basically told I would be on the Europe tour in March. I had all my flights, [Talent Relations] came to me and was like, ‘You’re going to be super busy doing stuff with Chelsea and Piper. Get ready for it.’

I had one of the writers come to me, talking to us about what they wanted me and Piper to be wearing, how they wanted us to behave, all the gimmicks. It was happening. ‘In two weeks, we’re doing Chelsea and Michin, you’re coming in to cost Michin and joining Chelsea.’ It was exactly how they did it with Alba. I was like, ‘Cool.’ Six days later, I’m out of a job.”

During a June interview, former WWE Women’s United States Champion Chelsea Green revealed that initially, the plan was for Piper Niven and Blair Davenport to form the “Secret Hervice” group to support Green.

“When we were talking about a third [member], at first, it was going to be Blair Davenport. And when Blair was released, it was obviously kind of a bummer moment, like, man, we’re not going to grow. Maybe we’re not going to be a faction. We’re just going to be a tag team. And then we both had the idea, like, what if we could convince them to get Kay Lee [Alba Fyre]?”

All of this shows that plans are always changing in WWE, but unfortunately for Priestley, that change led to her losing her job as a superstar.