After leaving WWE, Naomi, real name Trinity Fatu, is still on the sidelines.
When a user asked Naomi if she was “still in WWE” in the comments section of a post she made last month promoting her WrestleCon appearance, Naomi replied, “No frien.” This appears to be confirmation of her WWE exit after she and Mercedes Mone left the company last year over creative differences.
Earlier this year, Mone signed a contract with Bushiroad, the company that owns NJPW and STARDOM, after being released from WWE. Noami recently submitted a trademark application for what appears to be her new ring name.
According to Dave Meltzer’s report in the Wrestling Observer Newsletter, NJPW/STARDOM was interested in signing Noami, but the parent company decided against it because it needed to find other ways to reduce costs in light of New Japan’s declines related to the pandemic.
With her next title defense scheduled for this Sunday, Mone is currently negotiating a contract extension with NJPW/STARDOM ahead of the final match under her current deal.
“Because of that, the wrestling division is under pressure to keep spending down. An example is that they were told they could bring in Trinity Fatu, but it was felt it would cost too much for the return and thus far hadn’t made that deal,” Meltzer wrote.
It should be noted that Naomi has been interacting with STARDOM stars such as Mina Shirakawa and Mariah May on social media. It is unclear if she will compete alongside those wrestlers in the ring in the future.
Stay tuned to PWMania.com for more.
