"Mother, Wife and a FU*KING BAD A**" - Wrestling world ecstatic as AEW star returns after 2 years

AEW star Tay Melo recently returned to the ring after being out of action for almost two years. Her last match before her return happened in March 2023 at NEW Wrestlefest XXVII.

She had been on maternity leave since early 2023. In November 2023, she gave birth to a daughter. A few months after giving birth she started training to get back inside the ring.

She returned to action at STARDOM’s New Year Dream 2025 event where she tagged with Mina Shirakawa to take on the ROH Women’s Champion Athena and Thekla. Unfortunately, she and her teammate lost the match.

Wrestling stars across the world were elated to see Tay Melo return to action. Some of them even tweeted about her return match on X.

Melo’s husband Sammy Guevara tweeted, “Mother, Wife and a FU*KING BAD A**! I know how much you had to go through to be able to come back and you did an amazing job. Be proud mama! @taymelo.”

“Homegirl had a baby, took some time to focus solely on that, and returned to have her first match back in Japan moving smooth like butter,” Willow Nightingale wrote.

AEW star Tay Melo gets emotional after her return match

After the match, Tay Melo and Mina Shirakawa were interviewed backstage at STARDOM’s New Year Dream 2025 event. During the interview, the Brazillian native expressed her gratitude for getting to wrestle in Japan, which was a big dream of hers. She also got a little emotional while addressing her in-ring return. She was also very excited that her daughter watched her perform for the first time.

“I’m just so grateful to be here. I have a background in judo so Japan was also a dream of mine since I was a little kid. So being here today and having my little baby watching me is just a dream come true. I know we lost today. I’ll do better. I’ll keep training hard,” said Tay Melo.

Now that the former WWE star has already returned to the ring, it seems only a matter of time before fans see her in AEW too.