Former WWE star and a former WWE 24/7 Champion Maria Kanellis who is considered as the first lady of WWE recently talked about the appearance of Mickie James in the WWE Royal Rumble match. She gave her opinion on why WWE opened the forbidden door for the Impact Knockouts champion.
This is the first time in the history WWE worked with Impact wrestling. It is not very common for WWE to open the Forbidden door. It has happened for the first time in 25 years. The last time WWE worked with different professional wrestling promotions was back in 1997.
Maria Kanellis On Why WWE Brought Mickie James In Royal Rumble
Mickie James was not the only Forbidden door entrance of WWE Women’s Royal Rumble match. Former three times WWE Women’s champion Melina who is currently under contract with Impact wrestling as well also made an appearance in the Royal Rumble match. Even though her ring presence was short lived.
The best part of having James in the Royal Rumble match was seeing her entering as the Impact Knockouts champion and making her entrance under her famous Impact wrestling theme song Hardcore Country. It was an amazing moment and it is really a great time to be a wrestling fan.
But why WWE suddenly worked along with Impact wrestling? Are they scared of the growing popularity of AEW? Is it the reason behind this collaboration? A lot of professional wrestlers and pundits are predicting the same. And it can definitely be a huge possibility behind this collaboration.
There were more rumours of Forbidden door entrances in the Royal Rumble match, even on the men’s Rumble match. Even Cody Rhodes was rumoured to appear at the men’s Royal Rumble match. He himself teased it. But that did not happen. The IInspiration was approached by WWE as well but they declined to work with WWE again.
Maria Kanellis who is considered as the first lady of WWE recently spoke to Inside The Ropes where she talked about the appearance of Mickie James in the WWE Royal Rumble match. Maria Kanellis gave her opinion on why WWE opened the forbidden door for the Impact Knockouts champion. She said;
“I think it’s the talent is now, would be more of the approach and I don’t know if that’s the truth or not, but WWE is definitely a social media. They like to pop the social media crowd. They like to pop the fans in the building, and Mickie is the right person to do it.
“She has all the accolades. She is the champ right now over on IMPACT. She’s been a former WWE champion. She’s been a former IMPACT champion.
“She’s traveled around the world, had some of the best matches I’ve ever seen. She has that nostalgia aspect that WWE likes, but she’s also very fresh and new. She looks great. She’s a mom. I mean, there’s so many things that Mickie does well. She was in charge of the Empower team and the Empower show. Like, So you’re not getting Mickie James random person
“No, you’re getting Mickie F’in James like. So I think that she is the right talent. It’s not necessarily anything else other than that. She’s just the right person for the job.
“So in order to be AEW or IMPACT or WWE, you can’t just ignore the fact that Mickie James is IMPACT champion. If you’re going to bring her back, she better be holding up that title high because it adds credibility to whoever wins the Royal Rumble, which I hope is Mickie, because I think that would be a nice full circle moment. But who knows?”