Former WWE star and a former WWE 24/7 Champion Maria Kanellis who is often regarded as the First Lady of Wrestling recently talked about choosing AEW over WWE and also revealed that she received a lot of hate messages from anti-AEW fans.
Maria Kanellis started her journey in the world of professional wrestling back in 2004. She was a competitor in the inaugural Diva Search competition of WWE. She was the youngest of the tournament and a lot of people still believes that she was the most beautiful woman to ever compete in the Divas Search competition of WWE.
Maria Kanellis Reflects On Receiving Hate Messages From Anti-AEW Fans
Even though Maria Kanellis failed to win the WWE Diva Search competition 2004, WWE signed her just after the end of the competition. She stayed with WWE for seven long years and she was involved in various storylines with different wrestlers. She was involved in the pursuit for the WWE Women’s Championship and WWE Divas Championship but she failed to win the title ever.
In 2011, WWE released her. After that she went to the Ring Of Honor and worked there for four years. She also worked in TNA and New Japan Pro Wrestling. WWE signed her back in 2017 once again along with her husband Mike Bennett. She worked in WWE for 3 years but was released in 2020. She was never utilized well during this run.
Maria Kanellis who is often regarded as the First Lady of Wrestling recently spoke to Steve Fall’s Ten Count for WrestlingNews.co where she talked about choosing AEW over WWE and also revealed that she received a lot of hate messages from anti-AEW fans. She said;
“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.”
“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.”