Maria Kanellis thought Tony Khan buying Ring of Honor might put her right back where she wanted to be — helping build the ROH women’s division from behind the scenes. She even got Khan on the phone, personally went to bat for the women she believed he should hire, and discussed the possibility of getting involved herself. Then she actually arrived in AEW and the whole thing went nowhere.
Kanellis broke down what happened during her appearance on Wrestling Life Online and Tall Oak Productions. Before Tony Khan’s ROH purchase, Maria had been deeply involved in the women’s side of the company, and she made it clear that wasn’t some throwaway wrestling gig to her. She viewed producing and helping build women into stars as the direction she wanted her career to take.
Once Khan entered the picture, Maria wasn’t waiting around to see what happened. She said she got directly on the phone with him because she wanted to make sure the women from the previous ROH regime weren’t forgotten.
“I had talked to Tony Khan, I think it was in May or June of that year, and we just discussed women’s wrestling and Ring of Honor and all of that. Because I knew he was buying the company and I wanted to, you know, get on a call with him and talk about my girls because I wanted them all to have jobs.”
Maria wasn’t just telling Khan that the women were talented. She said she went person by person, breaking down exactly what each woman could bring to his company.
“And so I’m telling him who I think he should hire and I’m telling him like, you know, ‘Hey, this person’s great for just the locker room in general. This one’s great in the ring. This is a good hand. This is a good star.’ Like, I’m going through all of this. ‘Here, she’s a good promo.’”
That lobbying apparently paid off for several of the women Maria was fighting for, because she said many of them eventually landed jobs. The conversation didn’t stop with their futures either, because Maria and Khan also talked about her potentially returning to the role she had already fallen in love with.
“And many of them ended up with jobs, which I’m so grateful for. We touched on possibly me coming in and working with Ring of Honor and helping out with the women’s division. I was like, ‘Okay, great.’”
There was just one problem at the time — Maria was still working for TNA alongside Mike Bennett as part of Honor No More. Once that deal started winding down and Bennett began talking with AEW, Maria thought the pieces were finally falling into place.
“And so we had still worked for TNA at the time, and then as our contract was coming up, Mike was talking with AEW. And so we come into AEW and I’m thinking, ‘Okay, maybe I’ll have an opportunity to help out with Ring of Honor again.’”
Nope. Maria said the opportunity simply never came together, and she still isn’t giving a detailed explanation for what killed it.
“It doesn’t end up happening. Whatever happens happens. I don’t like to dwell on it, but it just didn’t happen where I was helping out the division.”
This wasn’t just something Maria quietly wondered about after the fact. She previously made it clear that she tried to get her old ROH women’s division job back and was denied, while also correcting the idea that she was working as an official backstage agent. She said she was mentoring women on her own time while her actual television role involved managing Griff Garrison and Cole Karter.
That makes her latest explanation a lot more interesting because now there is a clearer timeline. Maria spoke directly with Khan before joining AEW, helped make the case for women from the old ROH roster, discussed potentially helping the division herself, and then walked through the AEW door thinking that job might still be sitting there.
It wasn’t. Maria eventually found herself separated from Mike Bennett and Matt Taven as well, taking away another piece of what she had spent years building. Between losing The Kingdom on television and never getting the ROH creative role she thought could happen, her AEW chapter ended up looking nothing like the one she originally imagined when those first conversations with Khan took place.
Maria clearly wasn’t asking for another random spot on television. She wanted back into the part of wrestling that she says meant more to her than fame or money, and she got close enough to actually discuss it with Tony Khan before watching the opportunity disappear.
What do you make of Maria Kanellis talking directly with Tony Khan about helping the ROH women’s division only for the job to never happen? Do you think ROH missed an opportunity by not putting her back into that role? Let us know what you think 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.
