Maria Kanellis says WWE didn’t release her in 2010 because they ran out of things for her to do. According to Maria, she was all over television, working a schedule she compared to John Cena’s, appearing on Celebrity Apprentice and generating website clicks on Cena’s level — then WWE slid a new contract across the table that paid her less than she made the year before.
Kanellis unloaded on how her first WWE exit actually went down during her appearance on Wrestling Life Online and Tall Oak Productions. The idea that she was sitting backstage with nothing going on doesn’t line up with her version of events, because Maria said she knew exactly what usually happened when WWE was preparing to dump somebody.
“We used to have a joke. It’s not really a joke, but we used to have a saying backstage: you better be on TV once every three weeks or you’re probably being let go. But I was always on television.”
Creative wasn’t empty for her either. Maria said she had established relationships with WWE writers including David Lagana, Freddie Prinze Jr. and Brian Gewirtz, so people were still pitching and producing material for her.
“I had these tremendous relationships with all of the writers. So they had stuff for me.”
Then contract negotiations showed up. Maria was preparing to film the Celebrity Apprentice finale and believed she had plenty of ammunition to ask WWE for more money. She was wrestling regularly, traveling constantly, had worked WrestleMania and Playboy, and was getting mainstream television exposure away from WWE. Then she saw the number.
“My contract was coming up right as I was getting ready to film the finale for Celebrity Apprentice. And of course at the time I’m looking at the fact that I’m on the road just as many days as John Cena. I’m wrestling consistently. I’m on Celebrity Apprentice. I had just done Playboy. I was at WrestleMania. And they handed me a contract. And I went, ‘Uh, this is less than I made the year before.’”
Maria wasn’t having it. She refused to sign the deal sitting in front of her and sent WWE back a counteroffer.
“And so I had a problem with it. And I said to them, ‘I’m not signing this and here is my counter.’ And they didn’t budge.”
WWE didn’t blink, and neither did she. Maria said the phone rang the day after her birthday, with John Laurinaitis giving her Vince McMahon’s message.
“I get a call the day after my birthday and they said, ‘It looks like you want to try other things, so Vince wants to let you try other things.’ And so I was like, ‘Okay.’ And that was it. That was the end. And it was John Laurinaitis that called me.”
Here is where the story gets even uglier. Maria said she had already been fighting WWE over opportunities and compensation for women, and she wasn’t willing to accept being paid a fraction of what male talent around her was getting.
“I just remember feeling relief when I was released because I had fought so hard to get to the place that I was in wrestling, get the acknowledgements that I had in wrestling and to continue to push the Divas forward and to push for more opportunities, equal pay, all of that stuff.”
Then Maria put a number on just how big she believed that gap was.
“Standing my ground and saying, ‘No, you’re not paying me one-third of what everybody else was getting paid.’ That was a male wrestler. I was like, ‘Absolutely not. I’m not doing that.’”
Kanellis has made that same allegation before. She previously said she refused to sign a WWE deal worth one-third of what her male contemporaries were making, pushing back on the idea that WWE simply fired her out of nowhere during that first run. Maria also said she had something WWE could measure in black and white — clicks. Long before social media became WWE’s giant engagement machine, Maria said the company’s website traffic was a major advertising tool. According to her, content involving Maria was pulling numbers comparable to the biggest star WWE had.
“My clicks were the same about as John Cena. So my frame of reference is, okay, I’m bringing in all of these advertising dollars. I should be at least paid a little bit more.”
Maria wasn’t claiming she deserved Cena money simply because she could generate clicks. She openly admitted that a full-time male wrestler was taking a different physical beating than she was because WWE had her bouncing between several jobs.
“Was I taking the bumps the guys were? No, because I was going back and forth between wrestling, managing, interviewing, Kiss Cam, all these different jobs.”
She still had one line she wasn’t willing to cross — going backward financially after everything she had already done for the company.
“I understand if I’m not being paid as much because the toll on my body wasn’t as much, but I need to be paid at least more than I was paid last year.”
That also explains why Maria remembers her 2010 departure so differently from WWE cutting her a decade later. Kanellis previously told Wrestling Life Online that her 2020 WWE release terrified her because she had two babies at home, while the first exit felt more like a decision she made at the negotiating table.
The 2010 version is much colder. Maria says WWE wanted her on the road, wanted her on television and had her generating serious attention, but when it came time to put a new number on the contract, the offer actually went backward. She countered, WWE refused to move, and the relationship was over.
What do you make of Maria Kanellis saying WWE offered her less money despite her workload and John Cena-level website clicks? Was she right to stand her ground and refuse the deal? Let us know your thoughts and feedback in the comments.
This transcript was produced exclusively for Ringside News from the original recording. Republishing the transcription in full is prohibited. When using excerpts, provide prominent credit and a link to this article.
