As PWMania.com previously reported, Tokyo Sports revealed on Wednesday that WWE NXT Superstar Sarray has left WWE as of today, March 9, and that she will officially announce her return to Japan on Monday, March 13.
Sarray’s WWE departure has been confirmed, and she already has bookings elsewhere, according to an update from Fightful Select. As of this writing, WWE has not confirmed Sarray’s departure, but word is that her work with the company is effectively completed.
Sarray issued a tweet, which can be seen below, in which she did not address the departure, but she did announce that her press conference will be broadcast live on Instagram on Monday at 2pm in Japan, or midnight on the East Coast of the United States.
“Please watch it. Looking forward to it. Thank you!,” she wrote in a translated message.
Sarray’s WWE run began to come to an end in early 2022, when many of her biggest supporters were let go from working behind-the-scenes in NXT. According to brand sources, Sarray never played a consistent or major creative role after that, and by the spring of 2022, the writing was on the wall.
William Regal, the current WWE Vice President of Global Talent Development, was let go on January 5, 2022, while working for NXT as the storyline General Manager and as WWE’s Director of Talent Development & Head of Global Recruiting, and his departure was seen as a watershed moment in Sarray’s career. Regal left AEW in January of this year and rejoined WWE, but he has been working with the main roster.
People who frequent the WWE Performance Center noticed that Sarray hadn’t been there in “ages,” but when asked why, no answers were given. The creative given to Sarray was widely accepted within WWE to be outright bad, an obvious reference to how, beginning in January 2022, Sarray’s character saw a reboot centered on a medallion from her grandmother. We’ve discussed how that program never really clicked, and word came out this week that the original plan for the reboot was altered significantly due to the release of NXT 2.0.
Sarray is said to have taken great pride in assisting Tiffany Stratton during their brief feud in the spring of 2022. Sarray defeated Stratton on the NXT episodes of March 15 and April 19, but Sarray and Andre Chase defeated Stratton and Grayson Waller on the May 10 episode.
Despite the language barrier, there has been no mention of any problems in Sarray’s interactions with others in the company, and only positive things have been said about her by others at the WWE Performance Center.
Sarray signed with WWE in February 2020 after achieving success in Japan. Her arrival was delayed due to the COVID-19 pandemic, but she made her NXT in-ring debut on April 20, 2021, defeating Zoey Stark. Despite the fact that her signing was heralded as significant, Sarray was lost in the shuffle on the NXT brand. She hasn’t wrestled since losing to then-NXT Women’s Champion Mandy Rose on NXT TV on August 2, 2022. This defeat came after a brief stint in NXT UK.
There’s no word on who Sarray will be working for in Japan just yet, but we should find out after Monday’s press conference.
The following is the aforementioned tweet:
自分の口から皆様にきちんとご報告したかったのに…申し訳ありません。
一部先に報道されてしまいました。13日（月）記者会見をおこないます。
14時にインスタライブで見てください?Hello everyone, I will have my press conference next Monday and will do it live on Instagram (14pm Japan… https://t.co/0LezDiKOwo
— SARRAY (@SarrayWWE) March 9, 2023
