Maria Kanellis recently signed a deal with AEW, choosing Tony Khan’s promotion over re-signing with WWE. Kanellis debuted alongside her husband Mike Bennett and Matt Taven (also known as The Kingdom) back in October 2022.
Speaking with The Ten Count with Steve Fall podcast, Kanellis discussed her decision and how it led to some hateful messages from fans. Highlights of her comments are below:
Making the decision to sign with AEW: “I think AEW is the best situation for my family right now. The schedule is the best. I love growing and building with companies. I mean, I worked for Ring of Honor and rebuilt the women’s division last year with Bobby Cruise. So like, building is really interesting to me, and I think that for us, it’s just the best schedule we can possibly have with two kiddos.”
Receiving hate messages from anti-AEW fans: “A lot. It was amazing, really, and I don’t hate WWE. I had great conversations before we made our decision on where we were going to go and my husband had great conversations before we decided where we were going to go. I think, you know, that’s the thing that people also need to realize, too, is that a lot of us keep great relationships everywhere. So, you know, Triple H and Stephanie sent huge baskets to our house full of all these kids’ gifts after both of my kids. So it was these baskets of, you know, rocking horses and all these different things, and clothes, and all these really nice gifts for both of my children. So of course, like, you know, I appreciated that they did that for us back then. I still think highly of them today. I think what they’re doing is great. I’m excited to see friends like Mia Yim go back and whoever else is probably going back. I think that’s fun. I still have a great relationship with Scott D’Amore. It wasn’t like, ‘Oh, I hate impact. I’m leaving.’ No, it was, this is the best decision for my family.”
