Back in 2022, Steph De Lander was released from WWE. Recently, while speaking on the GENERATION OF WRESTLING PODCAST, the former Persia Pirotta reflected on how she rebranded herself after being released.
“I’ve always gotten piercings because I’ve always known I can take them out. I just love piercings, I love the way they look. I always wanted tattoos but I never got tattoos. Because I always knew, ‘Oh WWE doesn’t really like girls that have tattoos.’ And you know, the last thing, you don’t want to get signed and they want to give you this gimmick but it doesn’t match the tattoos that you have. I never wanted to give myself a reason for WWE to say no to me.
“So, I never got tattoos. And I wanted to cut bangs but I didn’t. I didn’t want to rock the bird, I didn’t want to change. You’ve got all of your looks approved and I don’t know. I just, I felt like I was trying to present what I thought they wanted from me.”
Steph De Lander on Triple H
De Lander cited advice from an Australian mentor, who told her she had to find herself instead of wondering what WWE wanted her to be. She said she was trying to be “conventionally” attractive, which appealed to the former regime. However, she believes Triple H would have been a fan of the new Steph De Lander.
“When I was there, it wasn’t Triple H. Triple H wasn’t running the show. And I think if Triple H… I think if I looked the way that I do now, then, he probably would have loved my look. Because he likes alternative-looking women. He likes Rhea Ripley, he likes Shotzi. We’ve seen that trend. Whereas when I was at WWE, in NXT, it was run by Vince and John Lauranitis. And you can see that the look that they kind of favored was the more classic, All-American-looking female. That’s not to say one’s better than the other.
“I felt like I was an alternative-looking person in a position where they didn’t want alternative-looking women at the time. So then, once I got released, it was like, well, this Persia Pirotta thing is out the window, that’s done, that’s over. Who am I? And like, what the f*** am I doing?”
Steph De Lander on finally being herself
De Lander said she went through a lot after being cut by WWE, including a break-up. She says she decided to cut her bangs (“like what every girl does”), and her stylist told her no one else was doing that look.
That’s exactly why she did it.
“So, when I got released, I was like, ‘Cut these f*cking bangs.’ The reason I’m doing it is because no one’s doing it. And then I got home from the salon and I was like, ‘That’s not crazy enough.’ So I got out the bleach, because I used to be a hairdresser. And I just started bleaching it. And I bleach like five times and then I was like, ‘All right. This is feeling good. This is feeling me.’ And then, I was like, ‘All right.’ This was… Every few weeks I would do something. I go, ‘All right. I want to shave slits in my eyebrows’… And it was like my confidence grew every time I added something that felt like me because I felt like I was in my own skin.”
Steph De Lander mentioned that things in TNA are more lenient when compared to WWE. In WWE, she was a 24-year-old Australian girl in a love storyline. However, her scripts were written by a 40-year-old American man, and she said “there wasn’t much wiggle room” for improvisation.
Steph De Lander on having more control of her character in TNA
“So, it was very hard for me to connect to the verbiage because it wasn’t the way that I would flirt with a guy. And I said that to… I said, ‘I know what I would say in this situation. Let me just say that.’ But, it was a lot more micromanaged.”
“Whereas in TNA for instance, I don’t know if you saw that vignette that we did last week where I was on the beach with PCO. But literally, I went to the beach with my videographer, we filmed all of that sh*t and then I sat down in my house with my podcast microphone and I just created my own script of the voiceover stuff and I wrote all of that. I didn’t even write it out. I spoke it a few times. And tweaked it. But I came up with all of that stuff. And that’s why it sounds so much more natural because it’s exactly what SDL would say in that situation.
De Lander said some people aren’t comfortable writing their own promos and the WWE environment is great for them. However, some other creative people like Matt Hardy or Mustafa Ali flourish when they have more control, and you can see their success.
Do you think SDL would have a better run in WWE now?
