RADICAN’S TAKE: Denial is a river – Tessa Blanchard’s controversial return to TNA

I’m a big believer in forgiveness. I believe people can make mistakes and learn and grow from them. It has been five years since a bevy of allegations were leveled against Tessa Blanchard by a number of women she worked with in wrestling. Tessa Blanchard has not come across like someone that is sorry for her actions in the past since returning to TNA.

Blachard was accused of being a bully and making racist comments by Allysin Kaye in January of 2020 after she made a post about women supporting women on Twitter. Kaye eventually went on to reveal on Twitter that Blanchard had bullied La Rosa Negra and called her the n word. The accusation was supported by Green on Twitter. Current WWE wrestler Gigi Dolin also issued a Tweet writing that Blanchard had publicly put her down for Twitter for something she wasn’t even involved in.

Fast forward five years and TNA, which has been a place that harbors wrestlers with a checkered past in recent years, brought Blanchard back into the fold. FBlanchard returned to TNA in December with Jordynne Grade pushing back on the idea of working with Blanchard and the roster wasn’t told about her return in advance due to the fear of the reaction people in the locker room would have to the news according to a report from Fightful Select. 

Last week was a banner week for TNA. They announced an official partnership with WWE after going steady in 2024 and exchanging talent during the year, which benefitted Jordynne Grace and Joe Hendry greatly. Grace wrestled Roxanne Perez for the NXT Women’s Championship at NXT’s Battleground PLE.

Hendry saw his stock soar after his entrance theme went viral on social media in concert with his appearances on NXT programming. His appearances in NXT eventually built to him main eventing the No Mercy PLE when he challenged Ethan Page for the NXT World Championship.

If TNA was smart, they would have given Blanchard some media training to discuss her past ahead of their Genesis PPV last week and had Blanchard come off as extremely apologetic for her actions. “A lot of people were fed a story from someone who is no longer with the company, that is completely not true and completely manipulated into something that it wasn’t,” Blanchard told Kevin Kellam of Sportskeeda in an interview ahead of Genesis when asked about the reaction of the locker room to her return. “Now, the conversations that I need to have, or feel I need to have, I’m having them.”

Blanchard did not directly address the accusations leveled upon her by Kaye, Green, or Dolin during the interview with Sportskeeda, as she instead focused on her personal growth since leaving TNA and taking some time away from wrestling. “I went back to college,” said Blanchard. “I joined Army ROTC, I’m going after my Global Affairs degree now, and I know who I am without wrestling. That’s what I didn’t know before. Everything in my life was wrestling, and when you lose that thing that is absolutely everything to you, you better know who you are because if you fall, you fall hard.”

Green went out of her way to address a fan recently on X (formerly Twitter) that accused her and other women driving Blanchard to have suicidal thoughts, which Blanchard has discussed in recent interviews when talking about her time away from wrestling. Green responded to the fan writing “This is giving me the ick… you thinking defending a racist bully is cool. Someone tell them, lol.”

TNA put on a really good PPV this past weekend. It featured the participation of several NXT wrestlers setting up angles with TNA wrestlers. One person I spoke to in WWE noted that everyone in NXT is excited about the partnership and is hoping to be involved in the matches that were teased on Genesis depending on where they take place.

Grace wrestled Blachard in what is expected to be her last match in TNA before becoming a free agent. Grace was completely professional and put Blanchard on her way out of the company. Grace posted a video on X of what appeared to be a goodbye celebration for her after the match backstage. Grace was shown getting an ovation by several staffers and female talent.

She was presented with a Knockouts Championship belt in the video and the person that gave it to her called her the forever Knockouts champion. Grace walked right by Blanchard when she got to the backstage area and did not acknowledge her during the part of the video she shared.

Grace is expected to head to WWE and a report from PWInsider noted that she had been seen at the Performance Center this week, but her match with Grace did not go off without a hitch, as chants of “She’s a racist” rang out at one point during the match.

Genesis ended with Joe Hendry finally capturing the TNA World Championship in the main event. It was a strong feel-good moment to end the PPV. However, if TNA wants to continue to move forward and continue to experience success, they’re going to have to find a way to address the way fans perceive Blanchard. WWE is likely not going to want anyone to work with Blanchard as long as her reputation with the fans is in shambles.

Blanchard has no doubt been through a lot since she was last in TNA, but one things she needs to do to is show through her actions in the coming weeks and months that she is sorry for the accusations made against her and corroborated by multiple wrestlers that she was a bully and made racist comments to female talent behind the scenes. TNA used their top female act to put Blanchard over on her way out the door, but it is now up to her to allow them to capitalize on it.

Follow PWTorch columnist Sean Radican on bluesky @seanradican. You can email Sean at pwtorchsean@gmail.com.