Former WWE NXT star Elayna Black, known to fans as Cora Jade, has revealed that a conversation with her friend and mentor, CM Punk, helped assure her that she was making the right decision to step away from wrestling to focus on her mental health.
Speaking on TMZ’s Inside the Ring podcast, Black, who grew up idolizing Punk, detailed the advice she received from the WWE legend. She explained that she was struggling with the decision to take a break because she was afraid of letting people down.
“I like broke down one day and we had a conversation, me and [Punk] on the phone. Because I was like, hey, I need your advice — because he’s been through it all. He left WWE for 10 years and hated WWE, said crazy things, and nobody ever thought he was coming back. He’s found his love for wrestling again,” Black said. “And he sat there and listened to me. And he’ll always listen to me, which I’m very grateful for.”
“So I was just asking him if he found his love for it again after the break and stuff like that. And so many things that he said to me in that conversation really helped me. And he told me, like, I don’t owe anybody anything and I don’t have to stick in something that’s no longer serving me. And that really stuck with me,” she continued.
Black announced last month that she was canceling her upcoming independent bookings and taking the rest of 2025 off to take care of her mental health. She explained in the interview that before her break, she felt depressed and was having panic attacks before every match.
“I have no plans on retiring, I’m taking this break,” Black said. “If I wouldn’t have taken this break, maybe I would have retired… but that’s why I’m taking the break, because I do love wrestling and I do want to have fun again and enjoy it and not just be upset about it all the time or feel like constant negativity about it. I want to love it again the way I did as a kid.”
Black was released from her WWE contract in May of this year. She has a non-wrestling appearance scheduled for the WrestleCade convention in November and hopes to be back in the ring by the end of the year or early 2026.