Tegan Nox says being ‘very sick’ contributed to her absence from WWE TV

  • Ian Carey
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During a recent interview with Metro UK, Nixon Newell (FKA Tegan Nox) revealed she was “very sick” last year before her release from WWE.

Nox was among the WWE roster cuts in November, which also included Baron Corbin and Indi Hartwell. Aside from briefly forming a tag team with Natalya, she was rarely used on WWE programming after returning in 2022. She says a mystery illness last year contributed to her absence.

“I did get incredibly sick for a little while,” Nox said. “We didn’t really get a legit answer. I went through tests, I was in hospital, a bunch of different stuff.”

“I think it was down to a lot of stress mixed with other things. But I was really sick, which contributed to my time off. I think that started it all, even though I said, ‘I’m good to go, it’s just I get sick now and again.’ But it wasn’t, like, deathly or anything.”

“I think it was a mix of them wanting to be safe, miscommunication with a lot of different people, because it was going from their doctors to outside doctors to hospitals,” she explained.

“I think it just got lost in communication. But I think unnecessary time off started with a necessary time off, if that makes sense.”

Nox will wrestle for the Wales-based Attack! promotion in May against TNA’s Dani Luna. She says the past year has been difficult, and she has lost some of her love for wrestling. She is giving herself two years to rekindle it—or she’ll call it a career.

“I’m giving myself two years to either find the love, find myself, or just call it a day,” she said. “Mid-2027, just before my 33rd birthday.”

“That’s a decent amount of time to be able to find myself and be like, ‘Okay, is it time to retire? Or do I have a little while left?’ I think that’s what’s driving me right now—the thought of finding myself and trying to find this happiness again.”

Nox hasn’t wrestled since last July, when she lost a WWE SmackDown dark match to Blair Davenport. Her last televised match was on the April 1, 2024, episode of Raw, where she teamed with Zoey Stark and Shayna Baszler in a loss to Damage CTRL.

The full interview is available here.