Women’s wrestling had some of the bonafide Divas from the past and Maria Kanellis can be considered as one of them. Some of the names with less technical wrestling skills were being used for WWE’s Divas era in eye-candy roles and they are already over with their careers for good. In contrast, the above-mentioned name is still going strong in All Elite wrestling promotion but not in a physical capacity.
It’s been a long time since Maria Kanellis featured in competition be it WWE or any other wrestling promotion but being a manager, she keeps on influencing people for more competition. For a long time now, she’s been suggesting a better wrestling business with women stars in control.
“My Daughter Wants Me To Wrestle,” Confesses Ex WWE Diva Maria Kanellis Bennett
To be precise, Maria Kanellis first publicly revealed that idea after being released from her first WWE contract in 2010 when women’s wrestling used to be an afterthought. Being a visionary, she got to be in charge of the ROH’s women’s division at the end of the Sinclair Broadcast Group era to lay a path for the same before creating her own Women’s Wrestling Army.
Maria Kanellis Reveals Choosing AEW Over WWE Was The “Best Situation For Family”
Maria Kanellis initially had a bad experience in the WWE Divas era
During an appearance on the latest AEW Unrestricted podcast, Maria Kanellis shared her experience from the Divas era of the WWE at the end of the Ruthless Aggression Era. She was initially given a role of an ignorant TV persona which she was not okay with,
“I’m thankful for it now, but I was pissed when they made me ditzy. I fought against that from the time I was young. It was my worst nightmare at the time. I’m so grateful now, because of that, and being that kind of character I got to work with everybody, because they could play off of me. They could get their characters over because I was ditzy.”
On a positive note, Maria Kanellis also revealed that she can never consider the word ‘Diva’ a negative word, at all. She gave examples of some pioneers from the Divas era who went on to make a positive impact on women’s wrestling. So for her, it has always been an empowerment process from the get-go,
“I think of ‘diva’ as a very positive term in terms of wrestling. Because if you think about who was considered a ‘Diva,’ it was Mickie James, Beth Phoenix, Michelle McCool, Kelly Kelly, Melina, Jillian Hall, the Bella Twins; all these people who are still making an impact in this industry were considered ‘Divas.’ So how can that be a bad word?”
