During a recent interview with Inside the Ropes, ROH Superstar Maria Kanellis commented on Triple H’s recent comments about the best women wrestlers in the world either wanting to or already working for WWE, and more. You can check out some highlights from the interview below:
On Triple H’s claim that WWE has the best women’s wrestlers: “So I think. I think, of course, has to say something like that, he has to say that everybody wants to be in WWE because that is where he works and that’s what’s required. But I think if you were honest with himself, he would realize that they aren’t the only place to work anymore and for a lot of people, they’re not even the place that they want to work. I’ve heard a lot of women comment to me. I have a couple within Ring of Honor right now that are under contract with us that were made offers by the WWE that turned them down. So and of course, like, I’m not going to go on some tirade about that because I don’t think it has any value. I think that women. In general, we all have communications about how things are going, how much we’re getting paid and how well we’re treated, and so because of that community of women, the women’s wrestling coalition, as I like to call it, we have this underground network of boosting each other up and women’s wrestling matters and women want to do a really good job with the wrestling part of women’s wrestling.
So I think anywhere could have the best wrestler in the world. It doesn’t matter if it’s going to be in Ring of Honor, AEW, Impact, WWE, it could be over in Japan or China or over in the UK or anywhere in Europe. It’s possible that any one of these places has the very best women’s wrestler in the world. It’s just a matter of who that person is, not what company they work for. And I hope that over the next few months we’re able to see a couple of those women and Ring of Honor. But if not, it is something to work towards. I mean, I would love to get Thunder Rosa for our tournament because I think she’s incredible. I would love to have LuFisto. I would love to bring a few girls in from Japan because there are great wrestlers everywhere and not all of them want to work for WWE. And after being there twice myself, I have to say that some of my most memorable moments in this industry had nothing to do with the big Stamford, Connecticut company, and it had everything to do with the people I was working with and the way that I felt working there.”
On when she knew she was done wrestling: “So I knew I was done wrestling at my last WrestleMania. I knew, I knew. I walked out there and I went, nope, I want to go back. I just knew I wasn’t done with the wrestling industry. I just was done with wrestling. Like, I didn’t want to go out there and put on a match and who knows? Never say never. Like we all as wrestlers are like, that’s the last match that we have 50 more like I’m not going to do that. What I am going to say is like I don’t feel the same way about it as I used to when I went out there for my last match at WrestleMania literally got out there and looked around and went, Yeah, I just want to get back to my baby girl because my daughter was backstage that just wanted to get back to her. And that’s that’s really how I feel about my wrestling right now, as I just know there’s things bigger than me and my own personal stuff that I want to witness. I want to see women grow. I want to see this industry change. I want more people to have my job as a woman in other companiesmand so that’s what I’m fighting for. I don’t need to go out there and duke it out in the ring because I have many, many fights that I’m doing behind the scenes every day, not within Ring of Honor, but just in the world and getting people to understand and have an appreciation for women’s wrestling.”
On Lana’s comments that WWE didn’t value women’s wrestling as much as men’s: ““So I didn’t see what Lana had said on social media or wherever she said it but what I can say is WWE has their favourites and then everybody else kind of falls away and you’re there as a supporting character and you’re just kind of on standby, which is a really hard place to be.
So when women’s wrestling, there’s even more of that because women draw viewers. It’s always been that way internationally, like numbers from internationally is so huge. So women draw those numbers in, especially women’s wrestling draws those numbers in from India, from China, from the Middle East. Like we just we happen to get the numbers from Europe, from Japan, like its incredible. So the WWE and places like that need women and we need to make sure that we have the women that are popular at that time, but they’re not always spot-lit. So that’s like a different beast for a Ring of Honor. The locker room has always been fantastic. I’ve always felt like I can trust the locker room to take care of me. Whether or not I’m having a good day, a bad day, I need a little bit of time with my family or whatever. Like I trust the locker room to be there for me.”
