Former WWE star Mike Bennett was interviewed by Fightful to talk about several professional wrestling topics.
Here are the highlights:
Who came up with the angle:
So it’s actually funny how that all went down. It was the week we found out we were pregnant, was the week that Paul Heyman called us and said, ‘I have this idea of doing a tag match with you, telling Maria, you and Mike [vs.] Becky and Seth.’ He went over the whole match. He’s like, ‘and then this and then Maria you’ll come and you’ll be chickenshit and eventually she’ll get you in the hold and you’ll tap out but then you’ll start blaming your husband for you’ll start blaming Mike for it.’
We had just found out like two days ago we were pregnant we were just waiting for the right time you know to tell them when we wanted to tell them. Maria was just like, ‘Paul I’ve known you a long time, I have to, I’m pregnant.’ He went, ‘alright. Well, this isn’t going to work then. Then, in typical Paul Heyman fashion stops dead in his tracks and he goes, ‘I think I have an idea.
Do you mind if I tell the boss?’ Maria went, ‘no we were going to eventually anyways. He goes, ‘alright I’ll call you back.’ He called his back and pitched the whole angle that we did.
How he felt about the storyline:
We were like, ‘yeah, that’s great.’ The caveat was always as long as this goes somewhere. Like I said, if you give me anything, I’ll run with it but I want there to be a payoff. I don’t want there to be nothing just, you know, some sort of a payoff so when Maria finally leaves to go on maternity leave, I’m not just sitting there as the guy that berated for the last three months and then you can’t do anything with me because I’m a joke. Yeah.
We had pitched a lot of the storylines. Then Paul came up with the 24 7 title idea and I thought that was fun. That was fun to me. I was like, ‘wow you’re really building something here. But, yeah. It was always that caveat of we’ll play and we’ll do it and we’ll have fun because again, it’s phony wrestling. Yes, it’s not real life. My name’s Mike Bennett and I’m not my wife’s bitch.
Those who think the story was created to embarrass him:
I don’t think people realize how valuable TV time is and how much money that costs the company. It’s like millions. They’re not going to waste TV time on someone just to embarrass [them.] Maybe a one-off, maybe a one-off embarrassment and that’s it.
They’re not going to progress the storyline and use it and put us in the ring with their two top stars being Becky and Seth, then put the title that they just introduced in the 24/7 title, like they’re just not that. It’s like Vince is a good businessman. He does understand. They’re not going to waste their time on that. So yeah if they were trying to embarrass us, again, I don’t care but I can’t comprehend the fact that that’s what they were trying to do because it just doesn’t make sense to me.
Also Read: Mike Kanellis Reveals Whether He Expected to Be Released From WWE, How He & Maria Reacted
