Kayfabe! – YouShoot with Maria Kanellis

KAYFABE!
YOUSHOOT w/Maria Kanellis

I’m happy to say that this edition of YouShoot is very similar to that of the Bob Holly YouShoot. You go into the interview thinking that you know what to expect and you wind up finding out you were wrong. Having gotten into the WWE through the Diva search, Maria has the stigma of being an airhead in regards to the actual business, but, like Holly, this shows that it’s mostly regulated to her being on TV. She’s very well spoken, and shows to be quite knowledgeable. It certainly helps when Maria talks about being a longtime fan of wrestling, which goes back to Johnny Ace and his methods of hiring potential divas, that being looking through catalogs of hot models. There’s one moment that a lot of people will find humorous, Maria almost gets gruff in a “back in my day” sort of way when she talks about the divas now in FCW, because they really don’t have to do anything, while Maria was helping to put up the ring while she was in OVW.

Even though this isn’t too terribly long, there’s a surprising amount of material covered here. Sean wraps things up by saying that they covered everything they could, and he’s totally on the mark. Here’s just a sampling of what’s covered: The Diva Search, Celebrity Apprentice, the Diva’s division, Maria’s time in the ring, Punk, the obligatory sex and drugs section, creepy fans, and more.

As far as sheer entertainment value goes, the final section, dealing with creepy fans takes the cake. Maria tells a story about a fan wanting her to take off her socks, autograph them, and give them to him. There’s also a couple of videos from creepy fans (with all due respect to YouShoot regulars like Billdozer and Hess Express), one of which asks if Maria would be interested in a three way with Billdozer and his girlfriend, his girlfriend is cool with that btw. The “Goldberg” video takes the cake, if you’ve seen the trailer then you’ll know what I mean. If you haven’t head the pleasure, then it’s a fat guy, apparently naked with Maria’s playboy issue covering his business, with a Goldberg’s head covering his face, asking if she’s ever seen her Playboy issue look that good. In the Punk category there’s a question about the size of Punk’s dick. She doesn’t give specifics, but it was big enough for her.

As with most YouShoots, my favorite part is always hearing the subject talk about life in the WWE and in the actual ring itself. This isn’t anything different. I was surprised to hear that Maria actually gave input to the office and to the WWE’s alleged creative team regarding the Piggy James angle and other potential angles involving herself. She puts over Fit Finlay huge for always having their backs and fighting for them to get ample time in the ring. She specifically mentions the ten diva tag from Wrestlemania 26 that got less than five minutes and the battle royal from the previous Wrestlemania that featured twenty-five divas and was only about five and half minutes. She compares that with the Trish/Mickie match from Wrestlemania 23 (a favorite match of mine BTW) which had plenty of time to develop and stole the show to an extent. Finlay and Arn Anderson both love her to death for the bumps she took from Umaga. The only thing that actually hurt her was the turnbuckle spot. Maria also puts over Beth for beating the piss out of her in their matches, but being a sweetheart while she was doing it. There’s a really interesting tidbit given about the accessibility of footage. If she wanted to hypothetically work on her microphone skills by watching Bobby Heenan, she could ask the office for some footage of Bobby Heenan and be provided with it.

Like with all the YouShoot editions, there are the games. There’s the standard ‘Ho Bag’ game, where Maria is given a list of names and decides who and who isn’t a Ho. The only ones in the bag are Melina, Carmella, and Ariel. There’s a new one called “What A Dick” where she’s given names and decides who is or isn’t a dick. Randy Orton, JBL, and Jim Cornette are amongst the people listed as dicks. There’s also ‘Real or Fake’ in which she lists who’s had a boob job and who hasn’t. The only one she gets wrong (that I could tell) was Stephanie McMahon, which she’s not sure about. Longtime WWE fans know the answer to that one, but that was a good three years before she joined the WWE, so you can’t fault her for it. Finally, there’s the playboy game, where Maria has to put the name with the Playboy pic (no face) and she goes 6 out of 8, only transposing Sable and Torrie Wilson.

In addition to the standard questions about WWE, diva life, etc. There are also questions regarding her time on Celebrity Apprentice, including my lone question, which Sean even puts over as being excellent. The question being if Trump really sunk the basket on the first try, which she assures me that he did. There’s also discussion about her heat with Cyndi Lauper. Maria says that the heat has died down a bit, and while she’s not a big fan of Cyndi personally, she still loves her music.

The 411: It's not as overall entertaining as New Jack's YouShoot or as interesting as Cornette's, but this is another interesting installment in the YouShoot library.
Final Score:  8.0   [ Very Good ]