Giulia’s WWE Career Is Over

WWE‘s women’s divisions on Raw and SmackDown are in a strange place. Over on Raw, Liv Morgan is the Women’s World Champion, but ahead of SummerSlam, she hadn’t defended her title in over one hundred days. Meanwhile, everyone’s wondering if Bayley is on her way out for AEW. It’s worse on SmackDown, where an injury to Rhea Ripley forced the company to create an interim WWE Women’s Champion. This makes it the perfect time for new stars to rise. It’s not happening. Bizarrely, WWE is doing nothing with Jordynne Grace, and as of this writing, Blake Monroe still hasn’t had a main roster match. Perhaps worst of all is what’s happening to Giulia. She came to WWE with so much promise, but after a squash match loss to Lash Legend on SmackDown, her WWE career is already over.

Giulia Came to WWE as One of the Best Wrestlers in the World

• Giulia was a major name in Stardom and New Japan Pro Wrestling.
• She was a one-time NXT Women’s Champion.
• She often played second fiddle to whatever Stephanie Vaquer was doing.

WWE might be bad at booking women’s wrestling, and most wrestling for that matter, but their roster is better than ever. Not only are the already mentioned names around, so are popular veterans like Charlotte Flair and Alexa Bliss, along with talented up-and-comers such as Stephanie Vaquer, Lyra Valkyria, and Roxanne Perez. Like Vaquer, Giulia established herself as a huge wrestling star away from the bright lights of WWE.

Born in London to an Italian father and Japanese mother, Giulia became a major name in Japan with impressive runs in the likes of Stardom and New Japan, where she won multiple titles and was often near the top of prestigious lists as one of the top women’s wrestlers on Earth. It was a very big deal when she signed with WWE. On NXT, she kept her name and legacy alive, becoming a one-time NXT Women’s Champion. Still, she often played second fiddle to Vaquer and was stripped of the aura she once possessed.

Giulia Lost a Squash Match To Lash Legend on SmackDown

• She has held the Women’s United States Champion two times.
• Despite being able to speak English, Kiana James served as Giulia’s mouthpiece.
• She has never been able to get past the midcard.

In April 2025, Giulia made her main roster WWE debut. She spent much of the fall and winter as the United States Champion, a nice stepping stone to a higher place on the card. Something was missing, and that was Giulia herself. She was for the most part silent, with the returning Kiana James serving as her mouthpiece. That would be understandable if Giulia couldn’t speak English, but she can! Earlier this year she spoke to TheSportster about how much she’d worked to improve and she was easy to understand. If you’d never heard her speak before, Giulia showed a lot of charisma and came across as fun and passionate. She’s so easy to like (and as a heel, so easy to hate), yet WWE never gave her any sort of character.

What carries Giulia is her past. If you’re a hardcore wrestling fan, you still root for her every week, hoping this will be the time she gets a push and lives up to her potential. Unlike Jordynne Grace, Giulia has at least been on TV often, yet she can never escape the midcard. She’s stuck, seemingly forever, and on the July 31 SmackDown, a horrendous match sadly showed that she is never going to be a star in WWE. In a qualifier for a SummerSlam interim WWE Women’s Title ladder match, Giulia was squashed by Lash Legend in just two minutes. No disrespect meant to Legend, who is a skilled performer, but Giulia should never be losing to her, and certainly not so quickly. The match completely destroyed Giulia’s WWE gimmick and made her look incredibly weak. No longer can past accomplishments carry her.

• Fans were upset on social media about Giulia’s humiliating SmackDown loss.
• She expressed toughness and confidence in response to the outrage.
• WWE and TKO have shown that they don’t see Giulia as a world championship level star.

The outrage on social media was swift. How could WWE treat Giulia this way? Even she heard it, taking to Twitter/X with a perfect response.

“To everyone who was rooting for me… I’m sorry this is how it turned out. But here’s the thing… Don’t fucking worry about me. I’m stubborn as hell. I don’t fucking quit. I’m tough as nails. This is what drives me. Bring it all the fuck on. I’ll get through whatever comes my way. Come at me, all of you.”

Good for Giulia for believing in herself. She’s a confident badass who won’t quit. That determination has carried her far, but well-written tweets and perseverance don’t matter if Triple H and TKO don’t believe in you. This new regime isn’t impressed with wrestling talent. If they were, Ilja Dragunov would be on SmackDown every week. When’s the last time you saw him? Today’s WWE wants the biggest veterans to put on ESPN. They want short clips that can get views on social media. Wrestling talent and building characters don’t interest them all that much.

Perhaps the outrage will result in WWE listening and giving Giulia a push. Don’t look for it to last though. TKO doesn’t respond well to social media criticism. They’ve even openly mocked it. Giulia feels like she’s been around forever, yet she’s still only 32. There is so much more she can do for professional wrestling. As much as it hurts to write, it won’t be in WWE. It’s easy to imagine her name showing up in a future list of mass releases. It will be awful if that moment comes, but it will be the best for Giulia. Only when she gets away from them will her tough-as-nails attitude be rewarded.