Bea Priestley comments on future, ‘open’ to conversations with AEW

As she enters free agency, Bea Priestley — former WWE wrestler Blair Davenport — is looking forward to having the freedom to make her own schedule.

Priestley was released by WWE in February and officially became a free agent this week. In an interview with Cultaholic, Priestley said that, while she’d be open to having conversations with AEW, she would like to take a little bit of time to do her own thing right now.

“Definitely now with Toni [Storm], everyone knows how close me and Toni are. We’re like sisters at this point. She lives in Orlando as well, we see each other fairly often. But I’m also along the lines of — I’m definitely open to having conversations but I do also want a little bit of time just to do my own thing because I’ve just come out of a contract where it’s like you have an app [with your schedule]. If you’ve got a dot on this day, you have to be there, you have to show up,” Priestley said. “If you’re sore from the gym or you’ve had a hard match and they book you the next day, you can’t say you don’t feel like it. You have to go do it even when you don’t feel 100 percent or you don’t particularly feel wanting to do it. You just have to.

“So I kind of just want to be able to take things that I want to do and do it because I’m looking forward to it or enjoying it rather than doing it because someone else is telling me to…Even WWE, I was very happy like, ‘Tell me what to do. I’m more than happy to do whatever.’ I’m not one of those people who is like, ‘Oh, I don’t want to lose.'”

Priestely spent nearly four years with WWE, starting in NXT UK before moving to NXT and then the main roster. Her last match before being released took place on SmackDown in November 2024, losing in a Women’s United States title tournament match.

Before joining WWE, Priestley was a champion for Stardom and did compete for AEW in 2019-2020. She has experience on the UK indies but is excited to now work the indie scene in the US.

Priestley told Cultaholic that she does want to face Toni Storm again.

“I’m just generally excited, say if there’s an opponent who I really want to wrestle that I can push that and get excited to wrestle someone who I’ve always wanted to and never had the chance to, or have another match with someone who I really enjoyed wrestling in the past. I’m looking forward to taking on my own stuff for a little bit and then maybe after I’ve done that, maybe I’ll push a little bit harder,” she said. “But I know Toni really wants to wrestle me so we’re hoping it’s going to happen someday.”