La Rosa Negra Speaks Out About The Tessa Blanchard Incident
Despite making history with a triumphant victory over Sami Callihan for the Impact World Championship at Hard To Kill, Tessa Blanchard has come under fire over accusations about her conduct with La Rosa Negra, a prominent icon in the Latin American pro wrestling community.
On Saturday evening after a tweet was made by Blanchard about women supporting each other, several female wrestlers went on record to blast Blanchard's past conduct, notably her using a racial slur in 2017 at La Rosa Negra.
Earlier today, La Rosa Negra uploaded the video above giving her side of the alleged incident, and how she is glad that this situation was brought up. She noted in the video that she doesn't expect an apology. Instead, she would just like to move on from the incident, as well as hope that Blanchard can learn from this mistake.
"When I saw those tweets, I was in shock and impressed because, since 2017, people have been pushing me to speak about something that isn't necessary," La Rosa Negra began. "I don't like to talk about my personal life. I like to keep myself private. Reading all of those fellow wrestlers' tweets that supported me and reading their names, it surprised me. And reading the non-wrestlers' comments, I said 'I have to do something.' Because it isn't how it says it was. Maybe people took it wrong. I don't want to be overexposed with this. The female wrestlers know what really happened and why I didn't say anything. Now, I want to clear things up.
"Working in the U.S. and Japan, I didn't disrespect anybody – no female wrestlers, promoters, sponsors, or any fans. That's not me. People who know me know how I am. Everywhere I've worked, they can tell you how I behave. I don't like to talk mean about people. I was there supporting people that helped me or didn't. I don't expect to receive any apologies. It's not necessary. I erased what happened. I gave it to God.
"It saddens me that racism, envy, and bad things exist in sports, it will always be there. As adults, when something bad happens, we can resolve things by talking. There's always a solution. Mine was to forget what happened on that day in April of 2017 in Japan. I think this was a good experience for me because now, I know I have a lot of backup. It's impressive. I didn't know so many people knew about the situation until the Twitter thing. I feel fulfilled. I feel tickled. Nothing will dull everything that I have achieved alone."
Blanchard has denied using the slur, writing on Twitter, "not true. That's my statement and the most attention I'll give it because of how actually ridiculous it is." She has not made any other public statements regarding the incident.
If you use any of the quotes in this article, please credit Contralona TV with a h/t to Wrestling Inc. for the transcription.