Former WWE star reveals moment referee genuinely thought they were dying in ‘puddle of blood’

TNA Wrestling star Elayna Black has revealed her most embarrassing moment in the ring, where even the referee thought she was ‘dying’.

The 25-year-old wrestler, who rose to fame as Cora Jade in WWE before her release in MONTH 2025, first appeared for TNA in March that year as part of the partnership between the two companies when she represented NXT against then-Knockouts Champion Masha Slamovich at Sacrifice.

Speaking exclusively to Metro before tonight’s Sacrifice event, Elayna recalled delaying her usual pre-match beet juice drink with just five minutes till her entrance.

Already feeling nervous, she ‘chugged’ the whole thing, and before the announcements were done, she was already feeling queasy.

‘The match starts, I just felt so sick the whole time, holding it down. I remember it was a double-down with me and Masha,’ she said.

‘I was like, “Oh no, I have to throw up”. I tried to make it to the edge of the ring, but I didn’t, I threw up in the ring!

‘But because it was straight beet juice, it just looked like a puddle of blood… It was my throw-up! Everyone thought she hit me and I was bleeding. The ref thought I was dying!’

By the time fans saw what happened, it ‘looked like a mysterious puddle of blood’. Despite her love of hardcore wrestling, she admitted that she has issues with the sight of blood.

‘God, I just remember being very sick to my stomach afterwards,’ she said of her first deathmatch in her late teens. ‘I do not do good with blood, and I had clotting blood coming out of my elbow.’

Tonight, she faces Mane Sade in a No Disqualification match, which could be a problem.

‘I’m worse 1774626381, if anything. I don’t know what’s happened to me as I’ve gotten older, but I get so queasy,’ she laughed.

‘Blood in wrestling doesn’t bother me, but when it’s on me and I’m looking at it, that bothers me.’

Tonight is an opportunity for Elayna to prove herself after being released by WWE in May 2025.

‘”Damn, I’m so young still, and my dreams are over,”‘ she thought at the time. ‘”What the f**k am I gonna do for the rest of my life?!”‘

Her mental health ‘took a turn’, and she stepped back from wrestling after some advice from CM Punk.

‘Punk left for 10 years and came back – obviously, the situation was different,’ she added. ‘But how many times has this happened where someone has been cut and not only came back, but came back a better version and more of a superstar?’

That doesn’t mean that TNA is a step back to WWE.

She’s trying to build herself and the company up, and she still sends her matches and promo to Punk for ‘honest’ advice, which is a ‘surreal’ experience after growing up watching everything he did.

It was tough for Elayna to step away for a few months in 2025, and she totally closed herself off for the first time since becoming a fan at around eight years old.

‘During that time, I wasn’t thinking about wrestling at all. I wasn’t watching it. I wasn’t looking at it online,’ she added.

That was a conscious move.

‘I wanted to miss it, because I told myself, if I didn’t miss it, then I didn’t want to do it anymore, period,’ she said. ‘[Now] I have a second chance.’

As a lifelong fan, she appreciates people wanting to meet their idols, but after the recent drama surrounding Chappell Roan and a young fan approaching her at a hotel, Elayna thinks there has to be a line.

She’s been that fan sitting outside for hours hoping that a wrestler would give them a few seconds of their time, but hotels are ‘not the place to do that’, she stated.

‘There have been a lot of times people have been weird, and you feel uncomfortable and you don’t feel safe… It’s just not okay, and it’s very much an invasion of privacy,’ she said.

As well as meet and greets, Elayna connects with fans through her OnlyFans account.

‘I’m very much someone who thinks that women should be able to do what they want with their bodies,’ she said. ‘People are gonna sexualise and objectify you, no matter what. It’s sh***y to say, and it sucks that it is that way.

‘But if I’m able to make an OnlyFans and post pictures and get paid to do so, why would I not do that?’

Elayna is grateful that she gets to ‘live her dream’ as a wrestler, while also being able to make money in another way.

‘I had never seen income like that before,’ she admitted. ‘I’m not touching it right now, but it’s there for the future.’

Speaking of what’s to come, Elayna still has some dream matches, including AEW’s Mercedes Mone and WWE legend AJ Lee.

Tonight, she’s hoping to add to the company’s rich history of bloody and violent matches.

‘Hopefully someone will say one day that this was their favourite hardcore match in TNA,’ she said.

‘It’s pressure, but good pressure. And I think we’re gonna tear the house down.’

TNA Sacrifice airs tonight at midnight on TNA+.

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