Maria Kanellis And Mike Bennett On Why They Left Impact Wrestling, How They Met, More
Maria Kanellis-Bennett and Mike Bennett joined Main Event Radio to talk about how they met and their time in Impact Wrestling. The audio can be downloaded here, they sent us these highlights:
How they met:
Maria: "It was actually at an independent wrestling show, Northeast Wrestling. I saw him across the room and he was wearing a Ring of Honor hat. I loved ROH at the time. So I went over to him, and this was my pick up line, 'hey so you work at Ring of Honor?' I wasn't actually trying to pick him up but I thought he was really cute."
Mike: "She could've been like hey, nice face. And I'd be like yeah."
Maria: "So we met there and ended up communicating through Twitter and that was our correspondence for a while."
Mike: "I direct messaged her, I slid into her DM's. It was love at first sight for me."
Maria: "Hey! That's gross. That's filthy. It was love at first sight for him, for me it was something. Might have taken a little bit. We were both dating other people so it couldn't be more than that. I knew after our first date, we went to Cheesecake Factory, then I knew for sure.
[Editor's note: We last interviewed Maria as she was getting photographed by Playboy in March 2008] "Wanna know something funny? That wasn't a few years ago...that was nine years ago!! I'm very very ancient now. I love it on Instagram when people say I'm so old. Yeah, I'm 35 and I'm proud of all those years."
Mike: "I think she gets better with age. She's like a fine wine."
Maria: "It's crazy. You know I haven't been in the WWE for seven years. A lot has changed since then. I'm a married woman now. I've worked for every organization known to man. Ring of Honor, New Japan, TNA, worked for them all. It's been a good run. I took a break for one year after leaving WWE and I really thought I was done. Then I met this guy and he made it okay for me again. I was nervous; I've never been the greatest wrestler. I've always wanted to manage. And I am a real manager...I manage his bookings, rental cars, etc."
Leaving Impact:
Maria: "It was wonderful there. We had a great time. We worked with the best talent in the world. They were fantastic and we really enjoyed ourselves. It was just time to go. We're excited to see where the road leads us next. Maybe the moon. Maybe I'll go back and be at manager at Jimmy John's."
Mike: "It was time for a change. Leaving all the talent was the hardest part. We'll go somewhere; if not we'll be living on the street in a box."