Tessa Blanchard Not Joining AEW Anytime Soon

Tessa Blanchard unlikely to be joining her legendary father Tully in All Elite Wrestling.

by Andrew Pollard
Tessa Blanchard
ImpactWrestling

While the biggest takeaway from last night’s AEW Dynamite Post-Show stream was Tony Schiavone discussing Sting’s first bump in an AEW ring, another interesting nugget saw Schiavone address the Tessa Blanchard-shaped elephant in the room.

Given how the legendary Tully Blanchard has now been announced to make his own return to in-ring action on the 3 March episode of Dynamite, that has again had people speculating whether Tessa could soon join her father in AEW.

The Queen of the Carolinas has been a free agent since IMPACT Wrestling terminated her contract last June just days before it was due to expire. Blanchard was stripped of the IMPACT World Heavyweight Championship at that time, and she’s only had two subsequent matches since her last IMPACT bout on 7 March 2020.

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Considering Tessa is one of the very best female workers in the business, plus the long-standing issues with AEW’s women’s division, she would certainly make a logical addition to All Elite Wrestling in that regard. The greater issue is, of course, that Blanchard has caused numerous controversies already in her relatively short career.

When Schiavone was last night asked about whether Tessa could soon end up in an AEW ring, he moved to rule that out for now.

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“Yeah, I don’t think that’s happening. At least not any time soon. I would have heard that [if she was signing with AEW].”

When and where Tessa Blanchard resurfaces is one of the great questions of the current wrestling landscape. On the one hand you have a true top tier talent who is still only 25 years of age, but the other hand lists the awful reputation she’s amassed for herself in recent years.

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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 dayjob, 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.