Nixon Newell says the controversy surrounding her and Miranda Alize walking out of an AEW Collision taping last year was based largely on assumptions from people who did not know what happened backstage.
Newell, formerly known as Tegan Nox in WWE, and Alize left the November 8, 2025 edition of Collision before a planned match. The incident generated considerable discussion at the time, but Newell says reports did not accurately reflect the conversations that took place between the wrestlers and AEW management.
Speaking with CryptoCasinos.com, Newell said the initial reporting was based on assumptions rather than knowledge of what had happened. “What was crazy about it was the dirt sheets had no actual idea what was happening, so they were just assuming, and that’s what got all the traction, the assumptions, not the true story.”
Newell said other people subsequently became involved in the discussion despite not being part of the conversations between herself, Alize and AEW officials. “And then random people who also didn’t know what happened, as they weren’t involved in any of the conversations with us and the higher-ups, interjecting and creating this whole scenario that didn’t happen.”
According to Newell, there was no major confrontation with AEW management. She claims both sides understood one another’s position and that she and Alize were even told they would be welcome to return. “We had an understanding with the higher-ups. We had an open invite back. It was like, ‘Cool, we understand. Thank you so much. We’d love to have you guys back, but that’s fine. We respect you coming to us and not kicking up a fuss.’”
Newell also disputed stories suggesting she had argued with people backstage, saying some of those claims involved people she had never even met. “But it was people with no knowledge of the situation interjecting and blowing it up into this entire lie. Like saying I’d had [argued with] people who I’ve never spoken to before or haven’t even met.”
One headline in particular made Newell realize how far the story had moved from what she believed actually happened. “I knew it was going to blow up when someone posted, ‘Nixon Newell pounds beer after walking out of AEW.’ I’m like, I am British. It was a singular Michelob Ultra. How is that pounding a beer?”
Newell then explained what the disagreement was actually about from her perspective.
She and Alize knew they were booked to lose and had no objection to doing so. However, Newell says they had initially been promised at least six minutes for the match and wanted something worthwhile to work with. “We weren’t asking for a fifteen-minute time-limit extravaganza. We were promised at least six minutes and something of worth and didn’t get it.”
Newell stressed that losing was never the issue. “We knew going in we were losing, that’s not a problem. Most of my career is losing. We understood their stance, they understood ours. It’s a business.”
Whatever disagreement existed between the wrestlers and AEW was relatively straightforward in Newell’s telling. The reaction from some wrestling fans was considerably more serious. Newell revealed that she subsequently received death threats for months. “For a long time, I want to say four months, almost, I had death threats every day.”
She said some messages explicitly told her to kill herself because she had walked out of AEW. “But then for some wrestling fans to be like, ‘Kill yourself, you walked out on AEW.’”
Newell also said she has dealt with a small group of people online who appear to have strongly disliked her for years, dating back to the serious knee injury she suffered during WWE’s Mae Young Classic in 2017. “There are certain people online who genuinely despise me for no reason other than I got hurt in the 2017 WWE Mae Young Classic. Like, I try and be a good person, I’m polite. But there’s a handful of people who absolutely despise me, and it just blows my mind.”
Newell’s account is that she and Alize disagreed with what was being offered for the Collision match, discussed the situation directly with AEW officials and left with both sides understanding the decision.
Nearly a year later, she maintains that the much larger controversy that followed bore little resemblance to what actually happened between them and AEW backstage.
