During an appearance on the Smarks and Stripes podcast, Mike Kanellis talked about requesting his release from WWE and why it hasn’t been granted.
“Yeah, and me and you have talked about this on a personal level and we’ve been friends for a long time. But for me, it was all personal. It had nothing to do with the company. Since the minute I got to WWE, they treated me great,” said Kanellis.
“They’ve treated my wife great, they’ve treated my daughter great, they’ve treated me great. You know, when I came out and said I had an addiction, there was no negativity from anybody, just constant support. And so, or me personally, having been almost two and a half years sober, it got to the point where I started reflecting on my past and what I did. And it became very hard for me to almost sit and reflect on the fact that I blew four years of my life doing drugs.”
“And now, I felt like my mind was clear, my head was clear, and I just wanted to work. I just want to wrestle, I just want to work. Like, I feel like I could do and have my best matches right now. And it’s extremely difficult when there are so many people on the roster, and you just don’t get that opportunity. And like I said, everybody wants to come at me negatively and say I’m mad; I’m not mad at anybody. Like, I’m genuinely not.”
“And if WWE called me tomorrow and was like, ‘We’re going to put you on TV,’ I’d do it. I’m not mad. I just want to work, and I just want to work a lot. I want to be able to go home and tell my daughter that, you know, Daddy put in the time, Daddy put in the effort. It’s incredibly difficult for me to go on social media and preach, ‘You have to work hard, you have to work your ass off,’ and then not do it myself. And so, I’m a worker, I’ve always been a worker. And now I’m at the point where I just want to work and work and work. And I’ll go wherever that opportunity exists.”
As for his release not being granted:
“As far as not giving me my release, I think it’s like anywhere. Like, the Patriots aren’t going to trade or release a player that they think the Jets are going to pick up. And I think we have to think of it like that. It’s not a negative, it’s just how it works. It works in sports, it works in wrestling.”
You can listen to the audio embedded below.
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