"Oh, Hell No!": Kelani Jordan Opens Up About Being Kicked Out After Her TNA Title Victory

Kelani Jordan compares the reaction to her TNA title win with Trish Stratus' experience.© Image via : Instagram/@kelani_wwe

Kelani Jordan won the TNA Knockouts World Championship and carried it back to WWE, where she says some people in the locker room were already pushing her out before she'd done a thing to anyone. The NXT Women's Champion was caught off guard by how quickly the welcome turned cold, and she still can't see why her win got treated so differently from titles other wrestlers have picked up outside the company. In a recent interview, Jordan walked through how it all played out and why it became a turning point for her.

Kelani Jordan Says WWE Locker Room Members Asked Her to Leave After Her TNA Title Win

The title came at TNA Victory Road on September 27, 2025, when Jordan beat Lei Ying Lee for the vacant Knockouts World Championship after Ash by Elegance stepped away from in-ring competition.

It was the first world title of her career, and she won it as an NXT talent. The fallout reached NXT television in October, with Lola Vice explaining why Jordan was no longer welcome in the women's locker room and Jordynne Grace coming to her defense.

Jordan still sounds stunned about it. “People were kicking me out of the locker room. Who hadn't even done anything yet! I was like, ‘Oh, hell no!'”

Then there were the fans. “But the fans also turned on me. I'm like, ‘Hold on. Trish went and got the title and you guys were like, Yeah! I went and you guys called me a traitor.'”

Jacy Jayne, who was NXT Women's Champion at the time, had used that same word on her after Victory Road. Jordan does give the women in the locker room some room, though.

Holding a championship puts a wrestler in a spot where others want what they have, and she could understand the reaction to an extent.

NXT Women's Champion Kelani Jordan Felt the Reaction Changed After She Brought the TNA Title Back

What stung most was where the heat came from. TNA is a partner promotion of WWE, so the title wasn't exactly enemy property, yet Jordan describes the trip as a raid on foreign ground. “Yes, because so I went into hostile territory, brought the title back to, you know, home turf and people turned on me.”

Her reign stayed busy while all of this swirled. She retained against Indi Hartwell at Bound for Glory, then lost the belt to Lee in a triple threat that also included Jordynne Grace at NXT Gold Rush.

Jordan sees the pressure as part of the job, whatever the belt happens to be. “Whenever you're holding a title, there's a target on your back, no matter what title it is.”

She now holds the NXT Women's Championship, which she won by beating Kendal Grey at NXT Heatwave on August 30.