Maria Kanellis was a recent guest on the ROHStrong podcast and shared her thoughts on Paul Heyman during a word association portion of the show. Maria credits Heyman for making her believe in herself as a writer and said that she thinks his legacy should be celebrated and recognized more than it has been lately.
“Teacher. He was my mentor for a very long time. He’s the person that made me believe that I could write because he believed in me at the time. In recent years, I feel like his legacy hasn’t been upheld as much as it should be because of whatever WWE is doing. Who knows. The idea he had for Mike and I was great. It could have been amazing but unfortunately along the way, things get watered down and muddy. And so I would say [he’s a] mentor, an educator and he’s my friend,” Kanellis said. “I text him randomly and ask him, hey ‘What about this person? What do you think? How can I make this better?’ He is one person that I know if I text him, I will hear back from him within a day.”
Host Kevin Eck went on to note that Paul is a polarizing guy and he knew him a bit from working together, he knows Paul will always make time for him and can’t say enough good things about him.
“I think one of the tough things is it’s like, you don’t know all—yes, people can be polarizing but you don’t know what the whole story is. I only know what happened to me,” Kanellis said. “I know what Paul told me, I know what was actually thrown at me at the last minute as I’m walking out to the ring. So I don’t know [everything].”
Eck, a former WWE writer himself, brought up the nerve-wracking experience of going up to talent with a script change just a few minutes before they were set to go out to the ring.
“So, one of the craziest experiences I ever had, it wasn’t a promo. I had promos where I was learning my lines as I’m going down to the ring and saying them in my head, like ‘ok, they just told me to say this, don’t say that word, Vince hates that word today.’ Like, whatever. But, this was a match. I get in the ring and Beth [Phoenix] was like, ‘we have 2 minutes.’ It was supposed to be a match where I was showing something,” Kanellis explained. “I was supposed to have a little bit more fire, and I’m like, ‘Alright—what are we doing?’ Beth is piecing this sucker together as we are locking up. So you just—again, who knows with all the stories floating around about Heyman. I know what I know about me and that’s what I’m going to go off of.”
Check out the full episode below:
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This week’s episode of ROH Wrestling offers fans a look at how the company has navigated the COVID-19 pandemic. It also features some star-studded matches that were taped before the pandemic began.
How did this show kick-off 2021 for ROH? We break it down on the Recap of Honor with Colin Tessier. Tune in to the show when it’s live on the WrestleZone Facebook page on Monday nights right after ROH Wresting airs on FITE.
