Another Former WWE Star Leaves Promotion After Successful Championship Run

Another former WWE star is leaving TNA after a successful championship run.© NDTV Library

Lei Ying Lee, who WWE fans knew as Xia Li, is no longer with TNA Wrestling, and PWInsider says she's now a free agent. The report went up on November 12 and says her time with the promotion is over after several months away from its shows. She had been spending an extended period in China but stayed under contract the whole time. Her TNA run included two Knockouts World Championship reigns, which came after WWE's decision to release her in April 2024. She's already having “conversations with other major promotions”about her future.

Lei Ying Lee's TNA departure comes after several months away from the promotion

Lee's last TNA match was on July 1, 2026, at television taping in Albany, New York. She challenged then-champion Xia Brookside in a No Disqualification match, where rule-breaking doesn't get anyone disqualified, but she didn't regain the Knockouts World Championship.

Brookside had first beaten Lee at Slammiversary on June 28, and that ended her second championship reign.

Her absence got linked early on to an extended trip to China. PWInsider's earlier reporting said she stayed under contract through all of that. That's changed now, and she's free to look at opportunities outside TNA.

Besides that, the report says Lee has started talking with other major wrestling promotions. None of the companies in those talks have been named.

The former WWE star found championship success after spending seven years with the company

Lee joined WWE in 2017 after a tryout in Shanghai, China, where she impressed officials. She was in the inaugural Mae Young Classic and became the first Chinese woman to wrestle in a WWE ring. Then she moved to NXT, and her main-roster debut came on SmackDown in 2021.

Her WWE run ended in April 2024, when the company released her after around seven years. She joined TNA later that year, working under the name Lei Ying Lee.

Things went different than that in TNA. Lee won the Knockouts World Championship twice, with her first reign starting in November 2025 and the second one in April 2026. She also showed up during TNA's invasion storyline involving NXT.

According to some reports, TNA made Lee an offer, but the two sides couldn't reach an agreement.

Lee can now pick her next wrestling destination, and talks with other major promotions are already happening.