Mike Kanellis Says WWE Knew Maria Was Expecting When They Were Re-Signed

Mike Bennett spoke with Fightful for a new interview and confirmed longstanding reports that WWE was aware they were planning to extend their family when they re-signed in 2019. You can check out some highlights below:

On if WWE knew that they were intending to have another child when they re-signed: “It was absolutely talked about. Every contract negotiation we went in there, because we actually at one point were talking about Maria just back in a creative role, not even coming back as a wrestler or a manager or any kind of on-screen talent. Maybe coming back and doing stuff with the girls down in NXT or helping be on the writing team. Because that’s what she loves to do now. She just loves helping, using her mind to help other people succeed. When we started talking to them, we said, ‘Look, we’re getting to that point where I’m 34, Maria’s 38, we want to have our kids when we want to have our kids.’ When we talked to them they were great. They were like, ‘Yeah, that’s not a problem at all.’ We told them. They 100% knew and they still offered us those contracts. I think it’s mostly fans that think that’s why they were mad at us. There was no heat backstage. No one yelling at us. No one screaming at us. It wasn’t like ‘Oh, my God, I can’t believe you did this.’ It was business as usual. Now, if they said stuff behind our backs, they did. But, I don’t have a clue. That’s one of the reasons we signed, too. We were like, ‘Oh, you’re cool with us…?’ They [said], ‘Of course.’ They’re a family company. They took good care of us while we were there. They just did nothing with us creatively and that sucked.

On their WWE theme song: “I loved it. I absolutely loved it. Because, again, I’m an old school wrestling mark and the first thing I thought of was, ‘This is going to piss people off.’ That’s how I think. It’s the instant reaction as a heel is, ‘How can I make people hate me?’ That was all Maria’s idea, by the way. When we were going back and forth with WWE before we debuted, she had actually talked to Billy Corgan and he had pitched the idea of, ‘I just see you guys coming out to this love ballad,’” said Bennett.So, when WWE reached out to us and were like, ‘What do you think for your music?’ Maria said, ‘Love ballad.’ I was like, ‘Huh? What? What are you talking about?’ She was like, ‘Trust me on this.’ We got to Money in the Bank, they brought us into the truck and were like, ‘Alright, listen to it. If you hate it, then we understand and we’ll figure something.’ They played it and I remember just dying laughing. They were like, ‘Do you hate it?’ I was like, ‘No, I f***ing love it. This is amazing. Let’s run with that.’ People seemed to love it. I just think it’s great. So much heat. It was such a good song. It sounded like a Bon Jovi song from the 80’s. It was great.”