What’s the story?
Well, after weeks of speculation (and after even being spotted at an airport in St. Louis the day before Money In The Bank), Maria Kanellis and Mike Bennett have arrived in WWE. The pair – now being billed as simply “Mike and Maria Kanellis” - made their WWE debut (or, in Maria’s case, return) at Money In The Bank Tonight.
In case you didn’t know
Bennett rose to prominence in Ring Of Honor, where he paired up with his real life wife Kanellis to much success. The pair would, later on, join Impact Wrestling, where Bennett performed under the name “The Miracle” Mike Bennett. However, the couple would part ways with Impact in March and make their way to WWE. The “First Lady of Wrestling” and her husband were slated to debut earlier, but those plans were sidetracked.
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The heart of the story
In an interesting, unexpected but admittedly understandable twist, Bennett is now performing under his wife’s last name. The couple came out during tonight’s PPV and cut a promo on how they were going to introduce the WWE to the “power of love”. Overall, it was a fairly short segment, presumably setting up for another appearance on Smackdown Live this Tuesday.
Here’s some video of their lovely-dovey promo:
Author’s take
Personally, I think this is interesting. For starters, Maria is the proven commodity here, having not just been in WWE previously but actually a pretty big star. With Mike Bennett skipping NXT altogether, it’s kind of clever that they’re just giving him her last name. Even JBL noticed after the segment, mentioning “he took her last name.” I can’t help but feel like WWE has some interesting plans for this, but I *do* have a history of giving WWE the benefit of the doubt on things and then looking kind dumb after, so who know?
