Maria Kanellis On Trying To Change The Way Women Are Viewed In Wrestling

“The First Lady of ROH” Maria Kanellis spoke to Philly.com to promote ROH 12th Anniversary Show. You can read some highlights below:

On working with Michael Bennett: I absolutely love working for Ring of Honor. It’s just a treat being able to work my fiancée [Michael Bennett]. I walk through the curtain with Michael Bennett, there’s a big cheer and within five seconds later they started booing me. It’s all because who I’m managing and he’s good at his job. He’s such an incredible wrestler and nobody gives him credit for it.

On watching Paul Heyman and Zeb Colter: “[Colter] is amazing. I don’t agree with anything he says. I think that’s the point. Heyman can tell you an entire story with just the way that he looks at whoever is in the ring with him or how he looks out at the crowd or how he looks at his hands or how he looks at a title, he tells an entire story,” she added. “That is who I look up to. That is who I find incredible.

On revolutionizing how women are viewed in wrestling: If it’s close to home and I can watch it right in front of me at Ring of Honor, if I can be apart of it, if I can stimulate women’s wrestling by making another opportunity for women to get involved in Ring of Honor then that’s what I want to see. Because right now Ring of Honor is the most important company to me and I think that it produces the best wrestling out there.

If I can bring in some of the best female talent in the world to come and work at Ring of Honor and wrestle at Ring of Honor then for me, that’s the most important thing. I think that Ring of Honor has that platform to do that. I think that the bar is so very high and it just makes everybody work harder. Hopefully, that’s the direction that we’re moving in.