AEW Star Announces Decision To "Step Away From Professional Wrestling"

All Elite favourite opts to step away from the squared circle.

by Andrew Pollard
AQA AEW
AEW

AEW star AQA has announced she'll be stepping away from the wrestling business for the "immediate future".

Taking to Twitter, the 25-year-old explained how "both mentally and physically" she hasn't "been in a great place with wrestling" for the past several years. As AQA put it, this "only sucked the fun out of every opportunity I had".

The real-life Angela Quentina Arnold added how she will now spend some time reflecting on what's next for her, and she also gave plentiful praise to those who've played a part in her pro wrestling career.

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Having signed with All Elite Wrestling earlier this year, AQA made her company debut by challenging for Jade Cargill's TBS Championship on the 9 February 2022 episode of AEW Dynamite. Like everyone else to go up against Cargill so far, the Booker T-trained grappler came up short on that night.

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Since that contest, AQA had a further six AEW outings - all on Dark and Dark: Elevation - with her picking up five victories from those matches. The most recent match of the Alabama native's career came last month for Warrior Wrestling, where she unsuccessfully challenged for the company's Women's Title held by AEW's Athena.

Prior to signing with AEW, AQA spent some time in NXT under the name Zayda Raimer. Despite being featured on NXT programming against the likes of Toni Storm, Mercedes Martinez and Candice LeRae, WWE released AQA last November after they declared her "medically disqualified" from being able to wrestle.

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Senior Writer
Senior Writer

Once described as the Swiss Army Knife of WhatCulture, Andrew can usually be found writing, editing, or presenting on a wide range of topics. As a lifelong wrestling fan, horror obsessive, and comic book nerd, he's been covering those topics professionally as far back as 2010. In addition to his current WhatCulture role of Senior Content Producer, Andrew previously spent nearly a decade as Online Editor and Lead Writer for the world's longest-running genre publication, Starburst Magazine, and his work has also been featured on BBC, TechRadar, Tom's Guide, WhatToWatch, Sportkskeeda, and various other outlets, in addition to being a Rotten Tomatoes-approved film critic. Between his main day job, his role as the lead panel host of Wales Comic Con, and his gig as a pre-match host for Wrexham AFC games, Andrew has also carried out a hugely varied amount of interviews, from the likes of Robert Englund, Kane Hodder, Adrienne Barbeau, Rob Zombie, Katharine Isabelle, Leigh Whannell, Bruce Campbell, and Tony Todd, to Kevin Smith, Ron Perlman, Elijah Wood, Giancarlo Esposito, Simon Pegg, Charlie Cox, the Russo Brothers, and Brian Blessed, to Kevin Conroy, Paul Dini, Tara Strong, Will Friedle, Burt Ward, Andrea Romano, Frank Miller, and Rob Liefeld, to Bret Hart, Sting, Mick Foley, Ricky Starks, Jamie Hayer, Britt Baker, Eric Bischoff, and William Regal, to Mickey Thomas, Joey Jones, Phil Parkinson, Brian Flynn, Denis Smith, Gary Bennett, Karl Connolly, and Bryan Robson - and that's just the tip of an ever-expanding iceberg. Where his beloved Wrexham AFC is concerned, Andrew is co-host of the Fearless in Devotion podcast, which won the Club Podcast of the Year gong at the 2024 FSA Awards.