Maria Kanellis remembers when WWE’s locker room didn’t exactly roll out the red carpet for independent wrestlers.
While speaking to Wrestling Life Online, Kanellis talked about how much wrestling has changed since she first got into the business. Women have more freedom now, wrestlers have more options, and the days of WWE being the only game most fans knew are long gone.Maria said the business she entered more than 20 years ago was a completely different place.
“This is not the same industry that I got into, you know, 20 some years ago. 20 some years ago, I I wouldn’t have had a voice. I wouldn’t have had you know been able to do what I wanted to do how I wanted to do it. I wouldn’t have been able to be even in it cuz I’m 44 years old.”
She pointed to women’s wrestling as one of the biggest examples of how much things have changed. There was a time when women had limits on what they were allowed to do in the ring, and Maria remembers those days well.
“There was a time where women couldn’t throw punches and then guess what? They can. And there was a time where you would as a as a female you couldn’t flip off the top rope unless you were Trish or Lita.”
Then Maria brought up another major shift: the rise of independent wrestlers. Before names from ROH and the indies started breaking through in WWE, those performers were often looked down on.
That is where CM Punk came into the conversation. Maria said she personally heard major WWE names criticize her for dating Punk back when he was part of that independent wrestling wave.
“It used to be that Indy guys were looked down upon. I was around plenty of top guys that would tell me how dumb I was for dating CM Punk when I was dating him and it was just the start of the whole Indy wrestling research not even a research but takeover of WWE and so like there was that time where Indy guys never made it into WWE and then all of a sudden they were allowed to be in WWE.”
That line says a lot. Punk later became one of WWE’s top stars, but at the time, some people clearly didn’t see the value in that kind of wrestler. Maria also explained that fans now know there are plenty of other places to work. AEW, TNA, GCW, NWA, and other promotions have created more options for talent who don’t want to depend on one company.
“I didn’t even know about Indies at the time. I was a WWE fan die hard fan. But now you got AEW. You got Impact with their deal. You’ve got you know all these other companies GCW and NWA and all these wrestling companies that you can go and you can you can do okay for yourself. And I think that’s really exciting.”
Maria said wrestling keeps changing, and she is interested to see where it goes next. Her comments about Punk show just how different things were before independent wrestling became such a major pipeline to WWE.
CM Punk went from being mocked by some behind the scenes to becoming one of the most influential names of his generation. Maria Kanellis saw that shift up close, and she clearly hasn’t forgotten how some people acted before the industry caught up.
What do you think about Maria Kanellis saying top WWE names called her dumb for dating CM Punk? Were independent wrestlers unfairly judged back then? Please share your thoughts and feedback in the comments section below.
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