WWE Paige Suspension Update: Why Was Saraya-Jade Bevis Suspended?

WWE Paige, wwe paige injury, wwe paige absence

Paige can not return to the WWE until the middle of December at the earliest. (WWE.com)

UPDATE: WWE has provided a statement to The New York Post which reads, ““Saraya-Jade Bevis tested positive for an illegal substance, not a prescription drug. In addition, WWE is providing world-class medical care for her in-ring injury.”


WWE superstar Paige has been suspended for two months for a violation of the company’s wellness policy. Now, more information is beginning to come out about why this may have happened.

Paige’s father, Ricky Knight, took to Facebook recently to go into detail about the wellness policy suspension. He claims that Paige was not abusing drugs, but rather she was taking prescription painkillers to treat her neck injury.

“She has been in pain and out of in ring action for a fair while now and has been prescribed pain killers which apparently is against the wellness program,” he wrote.

He went on to write that he feels Paige has been let down, not being given the proper advice and care, and that “to say I am pissed off with the situation is an understatement.”

World Wrestling Entertainment performs frequent, unannounced health and wellness tests on its performers. Their “wellness policy” is meant, in part, to ensure that no employee is abusing drugs while working for the company, and that each wrestler is healthy enough to be performing in the ring. Their drug tests are generally meant to identify the use of illegal substances or the use of medication without a prescription.

But the company’s policy does specify that under certain circumstances, medications are prohibited even with a prescription. For example, the policy states that superstars must not use prescription medication in a way that is inconsistent with the instructions, or use the medication in any way that would cause an increased risk to their health.

This section of the policy calls to mind the situation of Kurt Angle, former wrestler who was prescribed Vicodin after neck surgery and who then became addicted. He told ESPN earlier this year that at the height of his addiction, he was taking about 65 Vicodin per day. That’s not to say that something like this happened with Paige, but there certainly are circumstances in which a wrestler could be suspended for using a drug despite having a prescription.

This is Paige’s second wellness policy suspension this year. In August, she was suspended for her first violation, which she later said was simply because she was out of town when the WWE was going to give her her unannounced test, and she could not get to them in time for the deadline to be up. This leads to an automatic suspension. Moments after the news broke, she took to Twitter to complain that the WWE is hypocritical and unfair. She also sarcastically said that getting prescriptions is apparently not acceptable.

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Paige has indeed been dealing with neck pain for several months now, and by the time she was suspended in August, she already had been out of the ring for several weeks because of this injury. And when her suspension ended in September, she couldn’t return to the ring because her neck was still in bad shape and she was considering getting surgery. It’s likely, then, that Paige would not be able to perform during the next 60 days anyway, regardless of this suspension. But having two wellness policy violations one after the other certainly doesn’t look good on her record, especially when the third strike results in the superstar’s contract being terminated.