Tessa Blanchard reveals reason for recent absence from TNA Wrestling
Tessa Blanchard published a YouTube video on Sunday explaining her recent absence from TNA Wrestling.
Blanchard hasn’t wrestled for TNA since July but is scheduled to face Gia Miller at tonight’s Bound for Glory pay-per-view in Lowell, Massachusetts. She wrestled her first match in nearly three months on Friday night in Arena Mexico for CMLL against Lluvia.
In her YouTube video, Blanchard revealed that she took time off to have cosmetic surgery. The first part of the video appears to have been filmed before the surgery. In it, Blanchard says:
“I’ve been going back and forth on whether or not I wanted to share this with you all and it’s a bit personal. It’s vulnerable and honestly, I wasn’t really sure how it would be received, but I’ve always tried to be real with the people who follow me. So, here it is: I have decided to get a boob job.”
“This isn’t something that I’m doing for clout. This isn’t a gimmick. It’s not about trying to live up to someone else’s idea of beauty. It’s something that I’ve thought about for a long time and now I’m finally doing it, but for me.“
Blanchard also revealed that someone who had been a mentor to her early in her career had told her she would need to have breast augmentation to be successful in the wrestling industry.
The second part of her video appears to have been filmed around the time of her surgery, which she had in Guadalajara on July 30.
“I want to control the narrative on this. That’s the whole point of this video, is to control my own narrative about it. Because there’s going to be a million people that, once something is public, anyone and everyone is allowed to have an opinion, right? I don’t want this twisted into something that it’s not. This is for me. I feel happy.”
On Wrestling Observer Radio, Dave Meltzer addressed Blanchard’s match against Lluvia from Arena Mexico on Friday night, saying her match didn’t have any heat. A link to the episode is available here.
Blanchard’s full video is available below:
Ian Carey is a writer from Toronto, Ontario, Canada, whose work has been featured in NOW Magazine, The Huffington Post, and more. A lifelong wrestling aficionado born in Calgary, Alberta, Canada, he has covered the industry for a decade and a half. He joined the f4wonline.com team in 2019.