TNA star Elayna Black shares why she joined company, how she wanted to be in The Beautiful People

TNA Wrestling's Elayna Black shares with Fox News Digital why she decided to join the company and how bad she wanted to be in The Beautiful People.

Elayna Black was one of the hottest free agents on the pro wrestling market when she departed WWE in 2025.

Formerly known as Cora Jade in NXT, Black hit the independent circuit performing in places like Atomic Legacy Wrestling, Black Label Pro and Game Changer Wrestling before taking time off. Total Nonstop Action Wrestling (TNA) was an option for Black, and she was very familiar with the company’s programming.

She told Fox News Digital she grew up watching TNA and became a fan of Jeff Hardy and the female faction known as The Beautiful People.

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Elayna Black enters the ring at Slammiversary 2026. (TNA Wrestling)

"At the time I started watching TNA, Jeff Hardy was in the company," Black said. "So, I was a huge Jeff Hardy fan … I started watching WWE first. At first, that was the only wrestling company I knew. When you're a kid, you don't really know anything else. And then slowly I discovered TNA and you discover, oh, Jeff Hardy was in WWE, and I was young, so I didn't know. So, just discovering Jeff Hardy was crazy because I was like, I love wearing black nail polish and like I was getting into my little emo phase at the time. So, I loved Jeff Hardy.

"But my all-time favorites were The Beautiful People, specifically when it was the three of them at the time. It was Angelina Love, Velvet Sky, and Madison Rayne. They were like my gods. You could not tell me anything. I was going to be The Beautiful People. I was going to be in The Beautiful People. I remember my first ever phone, like flip phone, this little pink phone when I