Maria Kanellis-Bennett has been at the forefront of Ring of Honor’s mission to rebuild its women division for several months now. The company crowned its first Women’s World Champion last month, but “The First Lady of ROH” still has plenty of goals for the division.
In a recent appearance on Oral Sessions with Renée Paquette, Kanellis-Bennett described how she has her sights set on presenting more well-rounded characters and building up a Women’s Pure Division, among other objectives.
“I would really just like for it to not be kind of like a special event every time women have matches,” said Kanellis-Bennett. “I would just like it to be part of the show. You know, I would really like whole characters. We get very into these boxes of women can only be strong or women can only be weak, or women can only be this or that. And I wanna get out of that habit. I’ve really tried to tell my girls to tell me more of your story. Let’s get it out there. Let’s get more of the person you are because the person you are is amazing. It’s just a matter of letting everybody know who you are. So that’s another piece of it for me.
“Right now we just have the Women’s World Championship. I’d like to get a tag championship out there. I’d also like to have a Pure Division because pure wrestling is becoming such a huge thing, as far as the men are concerned. And so now I’d like to bring more of that with our women’s division. We have a lot of good women for that. So those type of things.
Kanellis-Bennett also stated that producing an all-women’s event and featuring more wrestling on ROH Women’s Division Wednesday are also on her list, but she emphasized her desire to expand the characters of the competitors in the women’s division. When asked, she named Trish Adora and Willow as two women who have already been successful in this regard.
“The biggest thing to me is to make the women’s characters more whole and to make them more well-rounded,” said Kanellis-Bennett. “There’s several women that I think are doing that. Trish Adora is fantastic. She has done a fantastic job of telling her story, but then also being a badass in the ring. She has a cause and she’s able to keep that out there while she’s building this amazing career. So I think she is definitely one of them that’s doing a good job of it.
“Willow is probably one of the best promos that’s out there right now because she’s just Willow. It doesn’t matter if you’re talking to her backstage or if you’re talking to her in the ring. That’s just who she is, and it’s more real to me than it’s ever been, as far as her promos. And I really like that.”
The full episode is available here:
