Maria Kanellis Recalls AEW Extending Her Contract So She Could Recover From Surgery

Maria Kanellis recently recalled how AEW extended her contract as she was recovering from surgery in late 2024. The WWE and AEW alumna left the latter company when her deal expired at the end of January 2025. The exit was three months after she underwent surgery to have a mass removed on her adrenal gland.

Kanellis spoke with Wrestling Life Online for a new interview and spoke about her recovery. She noted that AEW extended her deal so that she could have time to recovery. You can see the highlights below (per Fightful):

On AEW Extending Her Deal:

“So I had the tumor removed and that was in October and they extended my contract out for three months when I was still in the hospital. So I get a call while I’m in the hospital, they wanna extend the contract, thank you for the blessing of having three months of recovery to kind of get back on my feet after that. Luckily Mike still had a contract at the time and so, I had three months to recover after my surgery and I was still under contract.”

On the Recovery Process:

“So, yeah, it was just really hard. It was really hard, and because of the type of tumor I had, it’s pheochromocytoma and it’s a one in a million tumor. They don’t usually find it until you’re dead. So it changes your personality. It affects your heart. It makes your blood pressure do this (gestures downwards). So you’re just angry all the time. So I think a lot of me lost my fight for really fighting backstage for what I wanted, really kind of going after what I wanted. I gained weight through it because it also, it affects your hormones. So it was just- it was a really dark time.”