WWE: Lexis King on Joining WWE Being “Necessary Transition”, WWE Confirms Cora Jade ACL Injury, Madi Wrenkowski New Ring Name

Jan 17, 2024

Lexis King Comments on His Signing with WWE Being a “Necessary Transition” for His Career

A recent episode of the Insight with Chris Van Vliet podcast featured Lexis King as the guest. One of the topics discussed included King’s thoughts about his recent signing with WWE and his prior career in AEW.

“I spent so many months of my career at the previous company just second-guessing myself, am I really any good? Am I worth it? A lot of self-doubt. And just to see how my career has done a total 180 since then, it went from just sitting in the back and filming a few dark matches in Orlando, here and there, six-minute tag matches, barely getting in the ring and feeling the canvas.
Now I’m sitting on a throne, and I’m making my entrance in the biggest wrestling company in the world. They have this confidence in me and it kind of fuels me, I now have confidence in myself.”

King also gave his thoughts about his decision to leave AEW and join WWE.

“It wasn’t so much of a decision as it was just a necessary transition. I think my time came up at AEW, and it was a great, great run, a great deal financially, I did very well there. But like I said, just that sort of that self-doubt of not knowing the future, not knowing if I’m going to be used, or if I’m going to do anything? Well, it was pretty apparent when they didn’t re-sign me that I wasn’t going to be doing anything there anymore.
So God bless agents and attorneys that picked up the phone that day, my contract was up and got the conversation started. I think I got a paycheck from both companies in the same month. That’s how quickly the ball got rolling.”

King also gave his thoughts about his decision to change his ring name due to him feeling that he was subtracting the Pillman name from his late father’s legacy.

“Yeah (there was talk of me being ‘Brian Pillman Jr.’ in NXT). I don’t wanna get into details but when I first got there, everything was just… Brian Pillman Jr., yada, yada, yada, I had some talks. They gave me the whole, you know, ‘We can’t keep your name’ kind of talk and I thought, well, I don’t wanna make it seem like that’s a bad thing, and honestly, coming into it, I’ve always sort of fantasized about having my own wrestler name because my whole career, I’ve had his name. My whole life, I’ve had someone else’s name. I’ve been walking around for 30 years with someone else’s name. Brian Pillman is a name that my father made. He made that name on his own. There’s not much I can add to it… And I got to the point where I felt like I was sort of subtracting from it and I was sort of drawing away from his legacy because I am using his name and I was tired of being compared and everything so it’s like, as much as it was the company’s initial push for that, I was already kind of on board with that and I was excited for that and I wanted that to happen and I had people tell me, ‘Oh no, don’t let them change your name. You wanna keep all the intellectual’ yada, yada, yada and I thought, you know what? Screw it. I’m not gonna try to swim upstream. I’m gonna go with the flow, I’m gonna go with what the company wants, I’m gonna put the company first and foremost and if this is how we can not only benefit me by rebranding me and giving me a whole new identity to work with, but also, it shows the creative capacity for the company to work with its performers and build brand new — you know what I mean? Sure, they could have just said, alright, he’s Pillman Jr. and we play the clips of my dad playing football and boom, boom, boom and then it’s like, where do we go from there? But with Lexis King, and I say that with a lot of emphasis, Lexis King (he laughed) … we have so many places that we can go and explore my true personality which is not my father’s because he didn’t raise me and we have this sort of dark story where I am the son of my stepfather, right? Like, he influenced me, he raised me all by — terribly, he abused me and neglected me. But, that’s what makes me a King, right? I am a King because I was raised and influenced by that man and whether that means I have certain habits or tendencies that a guy like him would have and that’s who I am. I’m a lot less of a Pillman. I would be more of a Pillman if my father was around but he wasn’t so, internally, I am a King, I am Lexis King.”

Transcript h/t: F4WOnline.com, PostWrestling.com

WWE Confirms Cora Jade Suffered ACL Tear Injury

As noted before, NXT talent Cora Jade suffered a knee injury at a NXT house show event for WWE this past Friday in Dade City, Florida which was later believed to be a torn ACL injury.

Prior to her injury, Jade had been scheduled to compete in a 20-Women Battle Royal match to determine the official challenger for Lyra Valkyria’s NXT Women’s Championship at next month’s NXT Vengeance Day 2024 event.

During Tuesday’s NXT show, WWE confirmed that Jade had suffered a torn ACL injury and will be out of action for the company up to a year.

Jade provided an update on Twitter on Tuesday showing a brace and crutch for her injured knee.

It is only after we’ve lost everything that we are free to do anything pic.twitter.com/tpyGgKg1ZW
— Cora Jade (@CoraJadeWWE) January 17, 2024

Madi Wrenkowski Makes Official WWE In-Ring Debut at Tuesday’s NXT Show

As noted before, former National Wrestling Alliance and indies talent Madi Wrenkowski made her official debut for WWE’s NXT brand on the January 9th episode of NXT.

Tuesday’s NXT show featured Wrenkowski making her official in-ring debut for NXT as the official replacement for Cora Jade in the 20-Women Battle Royal match. It was announced that Wrenkowski will be known under the new ring name of Wren Sinclair going forward in WWE.

Madi Wrenkowski just made her #WWENXT debut. She is in the battle royal and is going by Wren Sinclair.

They said she was the one who injured Cora Jade (it was actually in a match with Lyra). pic.twitter.com/Hs46Tg1UhO
— Female Locker Room (@femalelroom) January 17, 2024