Maria Kanellis (@mariakanellis) is a professional wrestler best known for her time in WWE. She sits down with Chris Van Vliet in Nashville, TN to discuss how her journey from the Diva Search to wrestling in WWE, how the ditsy interviewer character was pitched to her, having matches with Umaga and Kurt Angle, posing for Playboy Magazine, her return with her husband Mike Kanellis, her pregnancy being used in a storyline, her new career after wrestling, if she is open to one more match, and more!
What keeps you busy these days?
“Oh well, I have three kids. Eight, six and eight months, and they are incredible. They are in dancing and soccer and music lessons and drumming, which I don’t know why I signed him up for that because now it’s just drumming at six in the morning. So I have my kids, I have my business, which I’m a florist and I’m also an event planner. So it keeps me pretty busy. This community down here in Nashville and in Tennessee, they’re just such good people, and so I’m constantly getting called and emailed, ‘Hey, can you do this?’ ‘Hey, can you do that?’ I just feel so incredibly grateful to be able to have that busyness.”
You seem like the type of person that when you’re passionate about something, you just go all the way into it, and I see that right now with what you’re doing with your floral business.
“Thank you. It took me a while. I had several years of wondering what comes next because I was in AEW and I was in ROH and I had a tumor and I had skin cancer and I had this and I had that… So it was a lot of self-reflection. Luckily, I have a husband that’s allowed me to just take my time to figure out, what do I want to do next? I finally have found something. So now I am all in. But before that, it was very much like I don’t know, I miss performing, and I miss this. It was really hard.”
Do you feel like the door is still open for you to wrestle?
“I don’t know. In wrestling, you never know. I haven’t closed the door, but it’s not always up to the person.”
You could go have an indie match this weekend if you wanted to.
“That’s true. Wrestling probably not, unless it’s like the Royal Rumble or another Evolution pay-per-view or something like that. But consistently wrestling? Probably not. I think it’s so much fun, and those girls took care of me so well the last time I was there, so that’s great. I got to look awesome in the ring, much better than I am. It was so much fun. But wrestling consistently, probably not. When I got into wrestling, it wasn’t for wrestling.”
What was it for?
“I’m sure you remember this, but Jonathan Coachman and The Rock used to have the banter backstage, and I really wanted to be an interviewer. I loved it. I loved the banter. I loved the way of moving the conversation from one topic to the other. I loved that Jonathan Coachman could do one little thing, and it meant everything in the interview. So that’s what I wanted to do, and then somehow I ended up wrestling. But the interviewing part, the managing part, all of that, I really love.”
Did you go into the Diva Search with the idea of I want to win this thing and become a wrestler?
“No, because they didn’t say it was just for being a wrestler. They said that it was to be a diva in WWE. It wasn’t real clear about what that could mean. I had told them the whole time, I want to be an interviewer. I remember saying it on stage. Coach was there, and I said on stage, ‘I want to be an interviewer like you, Coach. Aren’t you a popcorn fart?’ And he was like, ‘Go to the next room,’ and that was it. That was my entry into WWE was literally being on stage and telling Jonathan Coachman that I wanted to have his job, and yeah, that got me into New York, and then it got me on live television.”
You don’t end up winning the Diva Search, but how do you get signed from that?
“So I come back from getting eliminated. I came back from the ring, and John Laurinitis is there, and he’s like, ‘Give me a call in two weeks.’ I said, ‘I’ll call you in a week.’ So I called him every single week until he gave me a tryout. I went down to OVW, and Bubba and D-Von were down there coaching for two weeks. So here I am with all these other girls that wanted to get jobs, never wrestled before, and they are just bumping us in the ring. Don’t know how to bump. I’m just like whatever, I’ll figure it out. So I’m trying to bump in the ring, and at the end of those two weeks, I’m black and blue, and I had a job essentially, and I didn’t really know I had a job. I ended up going to Monday Night Raw, and I’m backstage walking, and I’m like okay, they wanted me to be here; here I am, and I’m walking down the hallway, and people are congratulating me. I was like what is going on? Finally, Lilian shows me the script for the evening, and there I was in the script, and that was how I found out I was working for WWE.”
I think that people think the ditsy interviewer character that you played. I think they think that’s you. How did that character come about?
“I was in OVW, and they wanted us to cut a promo, and I had never cut one before. I didn’t know how to cut a promo, so I started singing I’m a Little Teapot. Paul Heyman thought it was amazing. I was like, well, this is what I got. But of course, I made it a little bit sexual, so that’s probably why they liked it. I said, ‘Bend me over and pour me,’ but that’s neither here nor there. He thought it was great. So between him and Vince, I’m not exactly sure who finally made that decision, but yeah, it was from that little teapot promo.”
So you had a match with Umaga. Do you remember that day being pitched that you’re going to have this match?
“I remember working myself up backstage so that when I came out, I was shaking so that it would look more real and more believable. Because Umaga is one of the nicest, sweetest people in the world, and I didn’t feel that bump at all. He held me so tight, I didn’t feel hitting the mat.”
It’s such a vicious Samoan drop.
“Yes, but taking his booty to my face, that hurt. He had warned me to put my head back, and I thought I had my head back far enough, but he hit and it went all the way down my spine. I was like oh, good, I’m paralyzed after someone hit me with their butt! What a weird [world]. Yeah, it was good, good times.”
How did you get put in these positions? It wasn’t just Umaga.
“No, it wasn’t, and it was because I was willing. I was able to do it, and my character was so strong that when these guys would attack the sweet, innocent kind of dumb girl, then it really was evil. It really was a bad guy maneuver. So that’s how I got put in the position. Since I just tried to keep delivering.”
Talk to me about being in the ring with Kurt Angle:
“Man, he’s fast. He’s fast. I’ve never experienced someone so fast. He’s great. He’s sweet. He’s so funny in person. His wife is even funnier. I loved working with him. But yeah, I mean, and those guys back then had such a presence that we could have done nothing and still done everything. So every time I’m out there, I’m learning, I’m learning, I’m learning. But then we go to do this spot, and again, I didn’t even know what had happened. It was so fast, and the boys, they always protected me. They were always so good to me. I don’t know if I should say that or not, but they did. Whenever I had to wrestle one of the guys, I always felt great after. I never felt like something had happened to me.”
How did the idea come about for you and John to be part of this romantic storyline?
“I’m not exactly sure. I just showed up one week, and that’s what was happening. So okay, let’s do it. That’s most of the stuff back then, though. Most of the stuff, like now you would find out last minute. But most of the things you would find out early in the day, and you would go over it and you would rehearse, and then you would be performing that night. That main event match that we had, me and John had against Lita and Edge. I was learning most of those moves that day because I had never done them before. Getting pulled into the ring and things like that, I had never done. So yeah, you were learning during the day and performing at night.”
What do you think is the most misunderstood thing about the Divas era?
“That we didn’t care about wrestling, that we didn’t care about putting on the best match as possible. I didn’t get into the business to be a wrestler, but what I did get into the business for was to perform and to make people believe. So we cared deeply. We wanted more time. We wanted better stories. We wanted to be taken seriously. We were fighting backstage. We were fighting to not have to do a bikini competition. We were fighting to not have to do a water fight in the ring that was the most slippery thing ever. I’m bleeding as I’m coming back because we had slipped. Layla had thrown a forearm or something, and I slipped at the same time, and then my nose is just bleeding. Those matches, at times were fun, but at the same time they were a little dangerous. So we were fighting to be taken seriously, but the other thing was is we were having a good time, we were having fun doing those things. I look back and I think of it as some of my fondest moments is being able to perform with Ric Flair and perform with Cena, perform with The Rock and a lot of the a lot of the other guys that were there at that time. So yeah, I think that would be it.”
I thought the stuff you did with Santino was so fun!
“I used to have to bite my lip so that I wouldn’t laugh. So there’s this backstage promo we do, and he’s doing squats, and he goes ‘The one, the two, the three, the four…’ and then he starts saying ‘125’ because I start walking up, and every time I was like busting the camera. I was like, ‘I’m so sorry. It’s so funny. I can’t help [it].’ So yeah, it was good times. He’s awesome.”
It’s the perfect way to lead into the Playboy cover reveal too, right? Because yeah, you guys are dating. He doesn’t want this to be revealed. Was that the plan all along? Is that why they put you guys together?
“I asked if we could kind of have it be this women’s empowerment, and they went with it. I’m so thankful that we were able to all get in the ring together and have that moment of everybody picking on Santino; it was fun.”
So, how did Playboy come about for you?
“I was not the first choice. I think I might have been third or fourth.”
Layla recently told me that she had been approached for this, and she turned it down. You’re saying there was then someone else after that?
“I think so. There might have been two or three before me, which is fine. I enjoyed doing it. It was so much fun. I had to call my sister, though, because she was still in high school, and be like, ‘Hey, so they asked me to do Playboy. Are you okay with that?’ She’s like, ‘How much are they paying you?’ Then she was fine with it.”
Was is it more than you were making in WWE?
“Yes. One shoot, more than the year. But it was a different time. That was what we were fighting for at the time. There was such a discrepancy, and everybody knew that there was a discrepancy, and luckily that’s changed. It took time, but it also ended up being a very good story and a very, very big motivator in my life.”
What made you say yes when the people before you said no to posing for Playboy that year?
“I liked modeling, and to me, it was just an extension of that. I can look back on those photos when I’m 80 years old and go, ‘Wow, look at that bod!’ I think it was just fun. It’s just fun. I’ve never been taken care of so well as I was when I was on that shoot. It didn’t feel like it was anything salacious. It just felt like another editorial shoot.”
20 years later, how do you look back at those photos right now?
“I love it. I’m not looking forward to my kids being asked about it, but I love that I did it.”
Do your kids know that you pose for Playboy?
“They don’t know I pose for Playboy. My daughter’s eight, so she’s just now getting to the age that she might have reference. But they don’t do Safari or Google. They’re not on social media. They won’t be on social media for a long, long time. They won’t have their own cell phones for a long, long time. So in that sense, no. Will somebody bring it up to him at school? Probably at some point, and then we’ll have that conversation.”
What do you think that conversation looks like?
“I think it looks like your mom is incredibly proud of what she was able to accomplish in her career, and I don’t think that you should ever be ashamed about your body, as long as you’re not hurting yourself or hurting anybody else, and you’re of age, you should be able to do what you want. I think that’s real feminism, is being able to accept if somebody wants to run a company or if somebody wants to pose for Playboy, if somebody wants to be an influencer, or if they want to be a doctor. I think really at the end of the day, people should be able to do what they want.”
So, were you starting to get more mainstream fame at that point in time? It’s Playboy, Celebrity Apprentice, but you still are a WWE diva at that time.
“I was, and right at the end, it was before we filmed the finale for Celebrity Apprentice is when I get the call from WWE that says we’re not going to renew your contract. It was the day after my birthday, and I went okay, and then I filmed the finale for Celebrity Apprentice, and then I was off on my own.”
How did you end up leading to you going back to WWE?
“Okay, I’ll try and cut it short. So we’re in Ring of Honor. We’re doing all this new Japan stuff. It’s incredible, but we’ve kind of met our ceiling. So that would have been in 2015, end of 2015. I get a call from David Lagana, who is writing for TNA at the time, and he goes, ‘Hey, we would love for you to come over, work for TNA. We’ll put you guys in a main storyline. Think it’d be awesome.’ All this stuff. So I’m like, okay, cool. ‘Will I have control? Will I be able to still play a character that I want to play?’ He said, ‘Yeah, we’ll give you a lot of control.’ So I had a lot of control over what we were doing and the direction we were going. Then Mike became The Miracle. We show up in TNA, and that year, everybody, Bobby Lashley is in Drew McIntyre. The Hardys were there. There was just a killer roster. The Bullet Club was in and out at the time. So we were in everybody’s storylines at the time. A lot of times are the ones that are getting made a fool of, but you always need the fool in order to make a star. So we do this whole year. We build up this storyline into the wedding of Laurel Van Ness, who is Chelsea Green, The Hot Mess and Braxton. We do that wedding, and I kid you not, the crowd did not shut up once the whole time they are chanting, and everybody is playing their role, Mike is this drunk husband guy, and then we’ve got Allysin Kay, and we’ve got Laura. Even the pastor was incredible. Everybody is spot on. And then I leave the ring looking like Cruella De Vil. I’ve got this big boa on, and I’m screaming. And there’s this photo of me, and then Chelsea Green is in the ring, and she’s just makeup everywhere. Then we get the phone call from WWE, and we were convinced we were going to end up staying in TNA, and then we get the phone call.”
So you think that wedding is what got you back on their radar?
“The ratings were really good. Ratings were good. I mean, between everybody that was there, and if you think about all the people that got hired that year, we stole the ratings. We just took them. It was cool. It was a really interesting experience, and it was the fastest, ‘Okay, we need you to go do your blood work. Okay, we need you to blah blah blah.’ We need you. So we got cleared and ready to go, and we thought we were going to be starting on TV right after WrestleMania, and then we sat.”
So back to getting the call from WWE. You think, boom, we’re gonna hit the ground running. Why’d you guys end up having to wait?
“I don’t know. It’s wrestling, show business. There was different people in the works. I don’t know. We thought we were going to NXT, and we were excited about that. But then rumor has it, Vince got wind of that and was like, ‘No, Maria’s going straight to the main roster.’ So I don’t know if it was because I was already in WWE that he thought I needed to just go straight back to the main roster. I’m not sure, but because of that we ended up sitting for a long time.”
How did Mike feel about being emasculated with this storyline in WWE?
“Nigel McGuinness actually had come up with this idea of calling him Mike Kanellis when we were in Ring of Honor and we were on a car ride back from Canada, and he had brought up this idea he had, and lo and behold, WWE is the one that did it. He was fine with it because he thought there was going to be a payoff at the end. He thought he was going to be able to turn on me, and I always wanted to do the fight with him. I always thought that would be such a cool [idea]. I really wanted it to be the three of us, where Matt Taven, Mike, and myself were kind of in this little power struggle. But yeah, Mike was fine with it because he is the consummate professional. He is a fantastic worker, and he was like, all right, that’s what I’m doing, and so he thought he was going to get a really good payoff for it. And unfortunately, it never happened.”
Is that what the plan was?
“Originally it was. He was going to turn on me, and I was going to be this psycho pregnant lady. I don’t turn psycho when I’m pregnant, though. What I really do is I just turn into a whale on the couch and people have to bring me things because I’m like, no, everything hurts. I’m just not a good pregnant lady. But yeah, it was supposed to be where he turned on me, and after his addiction and his story and being able to fight back and get into incredible shape. I think he had something like 36 abs at the time. Of course, while I’m pregnant, this man decides I’m gonna get in the best shape of my life, and I’m like, whatever. So we thought that’s where it was going, and it just never did.”
Was it a difficult conversation with WWE to say, ‘Hey, I know I just got re-signed recently, but I’m pregnant.’
“Yeah, because we weren’t planning it. We had tried when we were in Ring of Honor and TNA, and I thought it just wasn’t possible for us. I thought it was just something we would have to think about when we were much older and do IVF or something? So for us, it was this huge surprise, and we’re like what are we gonna do? Then Maryse and Miz made their announcement, and we’re like, well, we can’t tell them this week, so we had to wait. I’m like, well, starting to show a little, but we’ll just wear this baggy shirt and it’ll be all right. Oh man, it was scary. It was scary because we didn’t know what was going to happen. Then two weeks after we had found out is when Mike had told me that he was addicted to painkillers.”
WWE ends up turning your pregnancy into a storyline. Which is also like best-case scenario because they could have been like that’s great, congratulations, go home and have your baby and have your time. They turned it into something, which is pretty cool.
“Yes, they did the second time. So my first pregnancy, they didn’t. So what had happened was I had my daughter, and I was basically off television from like when I was 10 weeks until I came back at the Evolution pay-per-view. So then we’re talking to WWE and our contracts are about up, and I’m like, ‘Okay, just so you guys know, we would like to have another baby, and we’d like them to be close together. So if you don’t want us to do that, you could just let our contracts run out, but we’re gonna have a baby.’ So we were just figuring we would just go and work somewhere else, or Mike could just go work somewhere else, or he could just stay there, and I just wouldn’t sign. I had even offered, ‘Do you want me to just coach until after I have my second baby?’ So we were trying to negotiate that out of what it was going to be, and then they were like, ‘No, no, no, we want to just sign you. If you end up having another baby, great. If not, that’s fine. Vince loves babies.’ I’ll never forget Mark Carano saying that to me. ‘Vince loves babies.’ I went okay. So we end up getting pregnant, and we had just found out we were pregnant, and I get a call from Paul Heyman. We had just found out that Wednesday, I think we had found out, and I get a call from Paul on Thursday or something. He’s like, ‘So we’re gonna do the storyline with you and Seth and Becky and Mike…’ I was like, okay, cool. ‘So we want you to do a mixed tag match on Monday…’ I went, ‘What? Hang on. Paul, I’m pregnant.’ It’s funny because he had asked me, he said, ‘Do you think you can do the match?’ I went, ‘Paul, I’m pregnant. I can’t.’ So that’s how it got turned into a storyline. It was literally after negotiating about our contract, us re-signing, them knowing like this was the plan, and then gonna put us into this huge storyline, and Becky backstage is like, ‘Are you sure you want to announce on Raw? You don’t have to do this. This is private. If you want it to be private, it’s fine.’ I was like, ‘No, no, it’s fine. We’re good.’ So I announced it [mid-match].”
You were Diva of the Year in 2009. So when Batista comes out, and this is a throwback to Kanye interrupting Taylor Swift. How did that moment come about?
“So I didn’t know this was happening. So there I am at the podium, and here comes Batista, and I’m like what is happening? The sheer panic on my face, did I do something wrong? Yeah, I didn’t know. Then we get backstage, and Dave apologizes to me up and down. He’s like, ‘I’m so sorry.’ Blah blah blah. But he’s always been so good to my family, and he actually bought my mom dinner one time. I can’t remember if it was her birthday or if it was Mother’s Day, but she had came to a show, and I was hanging out with a whole group, and Batista was in that group, and he ended up, you know, buying my mom dinner. I don’t know if it was because he felt bad. Maybe that was it. But no, he was so apologetic.”
What is Maria Kanellis grateful for?
“The struggle because it has made me strong, that my family is healthy, and the curiosity to keep going.”
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