Summary

Steph De Lander said she has questioned whether her departure from TNA would have played out differently under different internal circumstances, including if Gail Kim were still in Talent Relations.

De Lander and Mance Warner left TNA after the company informed De Lander it did not intend to clear her for in-ring competition, though she was told she could remain in a manager role.

She also said she wondered whether her outcome would have been different if she had been one of the company’s top stars or if she were a male performer.

Steph De Lander and TNA fallout keeps focus on talent-support standards

Steph De Lander openly framing this as a question of support and consistency adds pressure to how TNA’s talent-care approach will be judged, especially after she said she was offered a manager path instead of a return-to-ring route.

This also extends the same concerns she raised in her earlier comments about recovery assistance, which keeps the story centered on internal process trust rather than just one contract exit, as detailed in her prior account of rehab support concerns.

Quotes

Quote from Steph De Lander

“I have thought to myself, if I was one of their top guys, they would probably be slapping me on the ass and saying, ‘Go get ‘em bud. Get back on the field.’ That’s how I feel and maybe that’s just me being emotional about it or too close to the situation or whatever else… I can’t help but feel, okay, if we still had Gail Kim in Talent Relations and had a woman in there fighting for the women, maybe these conversations could have gone differently. But we don’t have that anymore. So I’m not trying to make it a gender thing but it kind of becomes that by nature. I do feel like it is a little bit of favoritism and I also do wonder to myself, if I was a guy, would this be handled the same way? Because it’s easy to say, ‘Oh, just be a manager. Who cares?’ And they told me that. They said, ‘If you wanna stay and just manage, you can do that.’ But they’re not gonna say that to a guy. So, I do think every situation is different… Whether that’s just emotional feelings or whatever else, I do have to wonder if I was a guy, would it be different?”