WWE’s Izzi Dame Trades 10-Year-Long Volleyball Ban For Championship Gold
Let’s be honest, usually when you hear about an athlete getting slapped with a decade-long ban, your mind goes to the dark places. You assume it involves performance-enhancing scandals, illicit gambling rings, or some kind of behavior that would make a PR rep break out in hives.
But for the newly crowned NXT Women’s North American Champion Izzi Dame, the crime was simply wanting a career change.
From Mediterranean Beaches to the Squared Circle
To understand the absurdity of the punishment, you have to look at where Izzi Dame was before she was winning NXT championships and stomping opponents in the NXT ring.
Dame had carved out a respectable career as a professional volleyball player. She was comfortable. In fact, she was so secure in that life that she had just put pen to paper on her second-year contract to return to Cyprus. She was home on a standard three-month break, bags likely half-packed in her mind, ready to return to the court.
Despite having a modest following of only 4,000 people on Instagram—hardly influencer numbers—a WWE recruiter slid into her DMs. Dame still admits she has no clue how they found her. It’s the kind of “right place, right time” miracle that makes you wonder if WWE has scouts hidden in every internet algorithm.
The Family Feud: Coach Dad vs. Visionary Mom
When the WWE offer for a tryout came through, Dame found herself in the middle of a classic domestic tug-of-war. On one side, she had her father. He wasn’t just a dad; he was her coach. He had invested years into molding her volleyball career. Naturally, when his daughter suggested quitting the sport they built together for WWE, he wasn’t exactly thrilled. His advice was practical: Stick to what you know. Stick to the contract. Go back to Cyprus.
On the other side was her mother, who apparently had a bit more of a gambler’s spirit. Her advice was simple: “Do it.” She saw the potential for her daughter to be a star back in the States, rather than an athlete on a distant island.
Dame listened to her mom. She took the leap, flew to the tryout, and absolutely crushed it. But success came with a receipt.
Breaking Contracts and Burning Bridges in Cyprus
When Izzi Dame got the news that she made the cut for the WWE Performance Center’s Fall 2022 Rookie Class, she had to make the call. She had to tell her agent in Cyprus that she wasn’t coming back.
The league didn’t take it well.
There is something objectively funny about the severity of the sentence. Ten years? It feels personal. It’s the kind of ban you hand out when you want to make sure someone is too old to ever spike a ball on your courts again. It implies that the volleyball federation of Cyprus is sitting around, calendars marked for 2032, just in case she tries to sneak back onto a roster.
Izzi Dame Strikes Gold in NXT
Looking at the scoreboard today, it’s safe to say Dame won the breakup. She traded a jersey for championship gold. She traded a volleyball court for a global television audience. And she traded a career in Cyprus for a 10-year ban that she wears like a badge of honor.
Most athletes fear being banned. Izzi Dame used hers as a stepping stone. If the Cyprus volleyball federation is watching NXT right now, they’re probably realizing what her mom knew all along: you can’t keep a talent like that on an island.
