Renee Paquette Fires Back At Critics Of Adnan Virk's WWE RAW Commentary
On a recent episode of The Wrestling Inc. Daily, Wrestling Inc. Managing Editor Nick Hausman sat down with Oral Sessions host and author of the new cookbook Messy In The Kitchen Renee Paquette. Earlier this year, Paquette invited Vince McMahon to her podcast, and she gave an update to that invite.
"No, he did not get back to me," Paquette revealed. "No response but I do have his email. I can get his phone number. I kind of pushed pause on that a little bit because I've been busy. We've had so many great guests, but I would love to have any McMahon on the show. Any McMahon is welcome on my show."
Hausman asked Paquette what she would asked Vince if he went on her podcast. She pondered the idea and came up with this answer.
"I guess I would just talk to him about some of the visions that he has for things and just being able to pick his brain," Paquette said. "I mean, being able to sit in production meetings with him for a year plus, and getting to just see how his mind works and trying to understand how his mind works, I think I would just have a lot of questions about how he runs the shows. Even from the commentary standpoint about what his vision is for that because good god is that ever a hot seat to be in."
Veteran WWE referee and frequent guest on The Wrestling Inc. Daily Jimmy Korderas has noted that there is no formal training for referees at the Performance Center. Paquette gave insight on whether commentators are given any sort of formal training.
"When you're in that world, everything is about the wrestlers, which I understand, but there are more parts to this machine to make it run smoothly and to discredit the performance of being a commentator or a referee is really doing a disservice to the hard work that everyone wants to do," Paquette noted. "I mean, there's so many people that want to be there that want to do a good job, but there's no training wheels. There's no shallow end.
"You're thrown in, and it's either sink or swim. And it can just be really difficult. I think even from the commentator standpoint, it's funny because everyone assumes that, well, you should just be good at. Well, no, it's not that. You've also got someone talking in your ear the whole time. There's all these crazy expectations. The fans can be voracious when it comes to that. It's a really tough spot to be in. It's a really tough spot to succeed in."
Current RAW play-by-play commentator Adnan Virk has been trending on Twitter frequently with fans criticizing his performance in his new role. Paquette was asked what it's like to receive largely praise from fans' these days and to be away from similar criticism.
"It's humbling to say the least," Paquette stated. "It really messes with you because it's not like I went in there being like, 'I know what I'm doing.' I didn't know what I was doing. They asked me to come in and commentate on Monday Night RAW, so, what am I gonna say? No? No, of course I'm going to go do my best and try to figure it out, and I will give credit to WWE big time here is that they let me stay in.
"Everything that I had done in WWE at that point, people have been so gracious to me, and the fans have been really really cool to me and accepting of me, so that's been awesome. I stepped in there, and it's like, 'Actually, we hate you.' I'm like, 'No, that's not what I wanted,' but you gotta grow. You gotta try things, and it's fine. It's tough to be in a position like that, and it's tough to feel like you don't want to do a bad job.
"I don't want to do a disservice to a story that is being told on television. Everyone's putting in so much hard work. So everyone just wants to do a good job, and everyone's just really mean to everyone on commentary. Give the guy a break. He's figuring it out. It just sucks. There's no way around it. Also, everyone just lives in that mind frame of 'oh, we just JR. We just want Jerry The King Lawler.' People want what they're familiar with. As much as we crave change and we're looking for change, we also are freaked out by change."
Paquette announced her cookbook in the summer of 2020. She gave her thoughts on her cookbook finally being released.
"It blows my mind. I can't believe that this germ of an idea I had like, 'I really wanna have a cookbook. I should have a cookbook. I'm qualified to have a cookbook.' To actually have the book now, I've got copies of it at the house. It's gonna be in people's homes so soon. It's just such a surreal thing to really take a step back and look at of just really wanting to do something and making it happen, and now it's here.
"It's fantastic. I'm so proud of this book. It's so much of me. There's so much of my personality in it. It is authentically Renee Paquette. People of known Renee Young for such a long time, but now to give them a little bit more of Renee Paquette I think is really cool, so I'm really excited about that."
Renee's new cookbook Messy In The Kitchen is now available for pre-order HERE. You can follow Renee on Twitter @ReneePaquette. The full audio and video from Renee's interview can be found below: