Indi Hartwell was released by WWE in October 2024, spending just under five years with the promotion.
Upon returning to the independent scene, Hartwell managed to keep her name, which is the name she used on the independents before signing with WWE.
Speaking to Chris Van Vliet on Insight, Hartwell was asked how she got to keep the name.
"I just asked. I've had this name my whole wrestling career. When you start wrestling at live events, they make you wrestle under your real name. I wrestled under my real name for a bit, and I think I had a dark match at NXT, and I just asked Road Dogg, 'Can I be Indi Hartwell?' 'Yeah, I'll ask. Why not.' They let me be Indi Hartwell for the dark match. It kind of kept going and I got on TV with it. I got my action figure with that name and got in the game with that name. When NXT 2.0 started, they went through that whole thing where you can't have your real name or a name they don't own, so they gave me the option to change my name or sell it to them. I sold it to them. It was always in the back of my mind, 'If I get released, what name am I going to be?' That's a big deal to me. When I got the call that I was being released, they said, 'You're released.' 'Okay, cool. So, I sold my name to the company. Is there any way I could get that back?' We got it all figured out and I got the rights and stuff to it. I'm very lucky," she said.
Hartwell is now signed to TNA Wrestling.
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