Maria Kanellis made her AEW debut during the Oct. 15 episode of Rampage. She would emerge on stage with her husband Mike Kanellis along with Matt Taven who are collectively known as The Kingdom. The trio is known for their time in ROH as well as IMPACT Wrestling. They have just wrapped up their time with IMPACT.
According to a new report from Fightful Select, at the time of the group’s debut, there was no deal set. This has changed. Their debut showed a challenge to FTR for the ROH World Tag Team Titles. Fightful was told that FTR had pushed to get them involved, though the full context of that is not known. Upon their first appearance, they weren’t actually signed to contracts but since then all three have signed multi-year contracts with AEW.
There were rumors WWE was interested in Taven and had conversations with Maria and Mike. There is no confirmation of any firm offers from WWE. Despite speaking openly about wanting to help book in ROH for the women’s division, as of now Maria is only contracted as a talent. Maria had helped out with the rebrand of the ROH women’s division prior to the promotion going on hiatus and then subsequently being purchased by AEW’s CEO Tony Khan.
Maria does own and runs the indie women’s promotion Women’s Wrestling Army which began in May.
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