Karissa Rivera, formerly known as Elektra Lopez in WWE, will be making her return to the ring since her WWE release. She will be taking on Deonna Purrazzo at a House of Glory (HOG) event on June 7. The event will be a Puerto Rico vs. The World theme.
As mentioned, this will be Rivera’s first match since her WWE departure, but also her first match of the year. She last wrestled on SmackDown in a Triple Threat tournament match for the WWE Women’s United States Title in December.
Rivera sat down with Fan’s View Podcast recently to speak on her WWE departure and how it was surprising to her.
“I was super surprised because I was just on TV that Friday. It was out of nowhere. I was at TV on Friday, and we had just gotten assigned a new writer. I was super excited. I had been pitching ideas for months. I was saying I wanted to be on live events and wanted to work with girls because I want to wrestle. I don’t want to just manage. I don’t mind managing, but I want to be able to do both because of how it was when I was in NXT, I was mostly managing them, and I wanted it to be different because I wanted to wrestle. I can wrestle and when I tried out, I tried out as a wrestler, not as a manger. I can do both and have no problem doing that, but I also wanted to build a name for myself, not just be in the shadows of the boys.“
“I was on TV that Friday. People were getting released while we were at work. ‘Oh shit, maybe I dodged this bullet this round.’ I get home and it was maybe 2:30 in the afternoon and I get a call, and they told me the news. No reason given. Nothing. Again, I’m not saying anything bad about anybody, I don’t want that to be misconstrued, but I had worked so hard for this and I feel like I wasn’t given a fair opportunity. If I were given an opportunity and I failed, I can understand it, but you didn’t really give me an opportunity to show you what I can do when I’m more than just a manager. You brought me up to be in the role and put me in a box and then you cut me because it didn’t work out. You didn’t let me open that box and show you what I can do. I was very surprised. Got no explanation as to what the reason was. I was very shocked. It was a year to the day that I had gotten called up to the main roster.” (Fightful transcript)