Maria Kanellis Says Signing With AEW Was The Best Situation For Her Family

Maria Kanellis had an impressive career in professional wrestling. After launching her career in the early 2000s with various independent promotions, Maria subsequently joined WWE in 2005, where she debuted as a backstage interviewer. Although her early tenure with the company was not immediately successful, she persevered and developed her craft, eventually achieving success. Through her hard work and dedication, she achieved notable success, including capturing the WWE Divas Championship. Regrettably, her tenure with WWE came to a close, and she joined AEW for a very good reason.

After her release from WWE, Maria Kanellis continued to pursue her career in professional wrestling. It was during this time that she met her husband, wrestler Mike Bennett.

Recently, Maria Kanellis, Mike Bennett, and Matt Taven made their debut on AEW’s Rampage. Later, it was revealed that the group had signed with AEW. During a recent interview with Steve Fall of Wrestling News, Maria explained that the decision to sign with AEW was the best decision for her family.

“AEW is the best situation for my family right now, the schedule is the best. I also love growing and building with companies. I worked for Ring of Honor and we built the women’s division, with Bobby Cruise. Building is really interesting to me. For us, it’s the best schedule we could possibly have with kiddos,” Maria said.

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Maria was then asked about the fans criticizing her for choosing AEW over WWE. To this, the former Divas Champion had quite a response.

“I don’t hate WWE. I had great conversations before we made our decision on where we were going to go. My husband had great conversations before we decided where we were going to go. That’s the thing that people also need to realize, a lot of us keep great relationships everywhere. Triple H and Stephanie (McMahon) sent huge baskets to our house, full of all these kid gifts after both of my kids. It’s these baskets of rocking horses, clothes, all these really nice gifts for both of my children. Of course, I appreciate that they did that for us back then, and I still think highly of them today. What they’re doing is great. I’m excited to see friends like Mia Yim go back and whoever else is probably going back. That’s fun. I still have a great relationship with Scott D’Amore. It wasn’t like, ‘I hate IMPACT, I’m leaving.’ No, this was the best decision for my family.

People saying, ‘How could you not go back to WWE?’ It doesn’t necessarily mean we won’t go back at some point. Right now, this is our best decision. Tony Khan is a great boss and he’s been treating us tremendously. I’m excited to see where we go in this crazy industry. Doors are never shut, they’re just forgotten about a little at the moment, and then maybe you’ll come back to it.”

Maria has been very vocal about improving women’s wrestling in the past, and during the interview, she also discussed the possibility of doing an all-women’s show. We at Ringside News will be excited to see that happen.

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