WWE Exit Surprised Booker T: “Didn’t See This One Coming”

A recent WWE exit shocked Booker T.

When you are a company as big as WWE, with hundreds of wrestlers under contract on Raw, SmackDown, NXT, and in development, there will always be people leaving, just as there will be people joining.

Ava, The Rock’s daughter, announced that she was leaving WWE as the NXT GM because her contract had expired and she chose not to sign a new one. Ava was originally signed as a wrestler, but only wrestled a few matches before settling in as the youngest GM in WWE history. She held the GM role for two years and started at 22.

After departing WWE, Ava blasted the US government and its ICE operation (U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement) by posting this on X/Twitter.

Now that i can say this with my full chest, 🖕🏽 ice and that entire administration.

The now-former Ava’s X account that was linked to WWE has since been disabled.

Booker T Thinks Ava’s WWE Departure Is A Surprise

As a WWE NXT announcer since October 2022, 2-time WWE Hall of Famer Booker T addressed Ava’s WWE departure on his Hall of Fame podcast.

“It’s definitely out of the blue. It definitely got a lot of layers there that you could peel back and say, man, was it this? What is that? Or the other?”

Booker T would go on to state that when he left NXT the previous, he never heard any rumors about Ava leaving or anything like that.

“But, I left work last week and I didn’t know anything about it. I didn’t hear any rumors, I didn’t feel any rumblings or anything like that as far as, hey man, maybe Ava’s gonna take a step back and move on into a different direction. But then again, this business is very, very unpredictable. It really is.

You could be here today, and pretty much gone tomorrow. So, I get it, totally understand it. Just didn’t see this one coming. But, that’s the business. It’s a little clause, normally at the bottom page, and it says ‘card subject to change.’ At any moment. So, that’s the way I look at this.”

As for the NXT brand, the NXT boss, Shawn Michaels, appointed Robert Stone as the interim GM without explaining why Ava was gone. Stone had worked as Ava’s assistant for a long time, so it makes storyline sense for him to be in the role.