It’s been just over a month since Tessa Blanchard made her return to TNA Wrestling, and she’s already (pardon the pun) made a huge impact. This Sunday, at the company’s Genesis Pay-Per-View event, she’s looking to continue doing so, at Jordynne Grace‘s expense.
“When I came back to TNA,” Blanchard said in an exclusive interview with SlamWrestling.net, “I wanted to make a statement, I wanted to send a message. And what a better person to do that with than with the top dog, who is Jordynne Grace?”
Blanchard’s attack on Grace, and their subsequent clashes over the past few weeks, have risen to levels so intense that their match on Sunday could be one of the more physical contests of the night. Which is just how both women like it.
“She’s a powerhouse,” Blanchard acknowledged about Grace. “Before I left (the company in 2020), I was the person who had the ball, I was untouchable. When I left, it left a space for some girl to go take the ball and run with it. And that’s what Jordynne did. She reached up, grabbed that ball, transformed her body, transformed her work ethic, transformed everything about herself into this unstoppable force.”
“But,” she said by way of warning, “I’m back now, and I want my ball back. That’s exactly what Sunday is about. It’s about taking my locker room back, taking back my spot in the world of professional wrestling, and showing who Tessa Blanchard has become.”
It’s been a long road for Blanchard to get back to show TNA fans what exactly she has become. It might have been a shorter road, as she had actually been approached to come back a year ago.
“Before Hard to Kill, (then TNA President) Scott D’Amore and Gail Kim reached out to me to come back at that pay-per-view,” she revealed. “But at that time, I just I was so happy in Mexico in CMLL. When I first went to CMLL, that’s where I found this happiness that I had lost for a long time. And with that happiness over there, I just it didn’t feel like it was the right time. I wasn’t really ready to give up that happiness.”
Cut to 2024 and Blanchard took a fresh look at who she was and what she wanted to accomplish, and that was the impetus for her return.
“I was sitting at my house – I still live in Mexico City – and I was kind of putting all my goals in writing. Writing them down and prioritizing them based on what was important to me. I had a hard number of when I don’t want to be a wrestler, like, past a certain age. And I’d like to have a family one day. And putting those things into perspective, I (decided) that if I want success in wrestling, if I want to go after any unfinished business, that I have to go after it now. It was time.”
“And what better place,” she reasoned, “than to return to where it had stopped? The place where I walked away from it all. We talked, and everything happened really quickly – I’m talking a matter of a couple of weeks leading up to my return.”
Her match at Genesis will be her first match since returning, and she’s anxious to remind everyone what she’s capable of when the bell rings. Possibly including some new things she’s learned in a couple of unique training grounds.
“(During my absence), I went to school – I joined ROTC to get into the military, to join the United States Army. That military training and ranger training was very endurance- and cardio-based. We would go on a ‘ruck’ – which is (an exercise where) you have a 70-pound backpack with all your things in it. And we’d go 12 miles, and then after a little bit of a rest and something to eat, you’d go 12 miles back. And they gave us these 30-pound water canisters that were swishing and swaying back and forth. I think I lost two or three toenails, my heels were all bloody. And that helped me get into tip-top shape.”
She also may show off some of the many lucha libre skills that she mastered while working at CMLL – a time that she treasured and spoke very enthusiastically about.
“The feeling of wrestling in Arena Mexico is just second-to-none,” she gushed. “It’s something I hope every person has the opportunity to experience at least once in their life, because it’s something you can’t really describe in words.”
“Being there, and connecting with the people and the culture, and working in CMLL – I just fell in love with lucha libre. I was working five days a week. Fridays in Arena Mexico. Saturdays the Coliseum, Sundays Arena Mexico. Monday is Arena Pueblo. Tuesday, they have two shows, Guadalajara and Arena Mexico. Wednesdays we did press, and then Thursdays, I was training with Tony Salazar and Último Guerrero. I’m a person that loves to be busy, and every single day we had something. To this day, I will say that CMLL has some of the best lucha libre in the world.”
“In fact, before I came back (to TNA), I talked with CMLL and we explored me being able to do both, but even though it didn’t end up being possible, I left super-amicably and with the doors wide open.”
But that door is staying closed for the time being. Although Blanchard hasn’t officially signed a contract with TNA at this point – though teased that she might do so this weekend – her sights are set right now at Grace and other opponents in the Knockouts locker room.
“I think Jody Threat is phenomenal,” she said, listing off some possible match-ups. “She keeps her body in tip-top shape, which I think is one of the most important things in our business. And then watching her in the ring, I think that she’s going to be something special for the company.”
“Savannah Evans – she started at HighSpots Wrestling School about six to eight months after me – she was a George South girl with us. Actually, I think I was her very first match of her career – at a county fairgrounds.”
And, as a former Knockouts Champion herself, Blanchard also has an eye on the current champion, Masha Slamovich.
“She’s had some phenomenal matches,” Blanchard praised. “I remember when she first came into Impact looking for an opportunity, and she was tearing it up with some of the talent there. I didn’t really have any interactions with her, because I was mostly wrestling the guys at the time. But watching what she’s become, she’s really come into her own. She’s an amazing champion for the company, and I hope to mix it up with her one day, too.”
Of course, when Blanchard left the company in 2020, she was the company’s World champion, mainly competing with the members of the men’s roster. She won’t rule out potentially competing for that title once more, but notes that it’s not her goal at this time.
“You know, I’ll never say never,” she said about the idea. “I was the World champion, and I never lost it. But I think right now, my focus is solely on the Knockouts.”
Either way, what has not, and she says, will not change is her desire to put on the best match on the card, regardless of who she’s in the ring with.
“I’m someone that wants to give 110% of myself,” she said. “That’s the person that I’ve always been – and that hasn’t changed. I’ve always been the athlete and the woman that I am. That’s organic for me. That’s my work ethic. I always want to put on the best match of the night.”
At Genesis, there’s even more motivation for her to deliver on that, as Blanchard is looking to uphold the success of her family’s legacy in Texas. Her grandfather Joe Blanchard wrestled extensively in the state and went on to found the Southwest Championship Wrestling promotion in San Antonio, where his son – her father – Tully started his legendary career.
“Anyone that’s familiar with Texas knows that it’s Blanchard Territory,” she said. “With my family’s history there, I wouldn’t want any other place to have my return match. So you can bet that Sunday is going to be something special.”
TNA Genesis airs this Sunday, January 19, at 8pm EST on Pay-Per-View and the TNA+ streaming service. The pre-show Countdown to Genesis starts at 7pm EST on TNA+ or Sportsnet 360 in Canada.
Tickets for the show, which emanates from the Curtis Culwell Center in Garland, Texas, can be bought at www.curtisculwellcenter.com.
The company will run a live episode of Impact on January 23 and hold TV tapings on January 24 at the Boeing Center at Tech Port in San Antonio. Tickets for those events are available at https://tnawrestling.com/events.
RELATED LINKS
- Tessa Blanchard Instagram: @Tessa_Blanchard
- TNAWrestling.com
- Jan. 18, 2025: Nic Nemeth believes he will beat Joe Hendry at Genesis
- Blanchard Family story archive
