Ex-WWE champion almost dated Maryse before one thing stopped him; says they French kissed

Former WWE Tag Team Champion René Duprée claimed he almost dated Maryse Mizanin before she got together with The Miz.

The former WWE Divas Champion joined the Stamford-based company after participating in the 2006 Diva Search competition. While she started wrestling in OVW, WWE's developmental territory at the time, in late 2006, Duprée was also competing there.

According to the former member of La Resistance, he and his fellow French-Canadian grew close during the latter's early days in the Stamford-based promotion.

On an episode of Rob Van Dam's 1 Of A Kind podcast, Duprée had an interesting revelation about how he almost dated Mizanin before a "higher power" stopped him, also claiming that the two had French kissed.

"We're both French-Canadians so, automatically, we gravitated to each other, right? She's away from home, she speaks very little English, I speak French. ['You both French kissed?'] Well, yeah, we did actually. So, anyway, at the time, she was dating a firefighter. That was her boyfriend. But we hung out all the time, boom, boom, boom, and eventually, after hanging out so much, we actually became, you know, really close. But this one time, I was living in Houston. So, I go back and forth from Houston to Kentucky, and that's like a 16-hour drive.... So, I was supposed to do a shot in Etown, Kentucky for OVW, okay. As I'm driving, now mind you, I told you her boyfriend was a firefighter," he said.

The former WWE Tag Team Champion continued with his story of how the 'higher power' stopped him from exploring his relationship with Mizanin any further.

"Now, I'm driving to this show. There's a freak snowstorm and I actually hit a patch of ice and I almost crashed my truck and I just like go into a ditch about a 100 mph and I'm f***ing lying in the ditch and f***ing like my wheels fell of the f***ing truck and boom. I missed the show. However, here's where the weird part comes. A f***ing transport truck f***ing T-Bone f***ing hit into the guard rail, guess who shows up? A fire truck. Now, me being me, I ran over to say: 'Hey man, you guys need help?' And a firefighter looks at me and says: 'Stay away! Stay back!' Now, she was at that show in Etown, Kentucky, and she was supposed to be my manager. But that's a higher power talking, right? 'Stay away. Stay back'. The office had already warned me: 'René, stay away from my divas. I don't want you to be around my divas, René [mimicking John Laurinaitis], right? Because they had heard that me and her were getting really close, right?" he claimed. [0:14 - 2:33]

You can watch him narrate the story in the video below:

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Maryse is now married to WWE Superstar The Miz

While René Duprée requested his release and left WWE in 2007, Maryse started dating fellow superstar, The Miz, about a year later. The two announced their engagement in 2013 and married the following year. The former Divas Champion and her husband now have two children together.

As The Awesome One is now one-half of the World Tag Team Champions, his wife is now a part-time WWE Superstar. The 41-year-old last wrestled in January 2022 when she and The Miz lost to Edge and Beth Phoenix in a Mixed Tag Team Match at Royal Rumble.

Maryse recently underwent surgery after being diagnosed with a pre-cancerous condition. In March, she provided an update on her health, revealing she is now tumor-free. It would be interesting to see if the former Divas Champion would return to WWE television soon.

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Please credit 1 Of A Kind and give an H/T to Sportskeeda Wrestling if you use the above transcription.