WWE News: Former Superstar Says ‘It’s Hard For Me To Be Okay’ With How Vince McMahon Treated His Wife
In a recent podcast appearance, former WWE superstar Mike Bennett — who was known as Mike Kanellis during his stint in the promotion — called out company chairman Vince McMahon for his decision to release his wife, Maria Kanellis, despite the fact she was on maternity leave at the time.
As reported by WrestlingNews.co on Wednesday, Bennett discussed several topics when he appeared on this week’s episode of The Two Man Power Trip of Wrestling podcast, including the decision to use his wife’s surname as part of his ring name and how upset he was that WWE didn’t turn this into a storyline as allegedly promised. He also spoke in-depth about how the promotion released the couple in April as part of its massive job cuts amid the coronavirus pandemic.
According to Bennett, McMahon is the type of boss who could be nice in person but do things in an underhanded manner. In particular, he stressed that it’s “hard for [him] to be okay” with how the chairman treated Kanellis, who wanted to remain in the company. The former superstar also noted that eight months prior to being let go, he made it clear that he was the only one of the two who was asking to be released.
“I wanted to go. My wife didn’t. We talked to them time and time again about firing me but not firing her. I wanted my release, she did not want her release. We were adamant that we were two separate talents and you should treat us differently.”
Bennett also suggested that McMahon should have cut him right after he asked to be let out of his contract, as that would have allowed him to quickly find work elsewhere.
Additionally, Bennett pointed out that, unlike him, Kanellis had extensive experience working for WWE. She spent six years in her first run and another three years in her second. He said that it was a “real lousy” thing to let go of a woman who had spent close to a decade with the promotion and was on maternity leave after giving birth to her second child, all in the middle of a worldwide health crisis.
Bennett’s comments about McMahon purportedly treating him and his spouse unfairly are just the latest negative remarks he’s made about the three years he spent working for his former employer. Last week, he appeared on Hannibal TV and discussed how wrestlers would allegedly be punished by being quietly kept off television, without anybody from the company’s upper brass actually telling the talent that they did something wrong. He also claimed that McMahon makes changes to his product in order to cater to his tastes rather than those of the fans.
