Renee Paquette On Her Decision To Sign With AEW, Says She Missed Wrestling

In the latest episode of her podcast The Sessions, Renee Paquette spoke about her decision to join AEW this week and how the signing came to be. Here are highlights;

On her feelings towards WWE: “I just want to reiterate as well, because I feel like it can get very muddy in this conversations because people can get very territorial about WWE vs. AEW and all that…I want nothing to do with any of that. I love so many people at both companies. WWE was so great to me for years. Of course, yeah, shit, I could have my gripes about things, but who couldn’t about any job? They gave me such a great platform and I really did have a great time there. And of course this opportunity with AEW would not have been afforded to me had I not had the career and reputation that I was able to have in WWE.”

On what brought her back to wrestling: “It’s missing being around professional wrestling. It’s missing that TV aspect of doing things. I love that I get to work from home. I love that I can pop go upstairs, turn on the microphone, turn on the camera, do the podcast. I was doing hits for the NHL Network, all from here as well, I lived a really great life of being able to work from home while we were all stuck in COVID because that’s just how we were existing. But yeah, I miss the crowds, I miss the lights, I miss the outfits, and the aspect of putting on an actual show. I’m ready to get out of my fucking sweatpants is what I’m saying.”

On how the conversations started: “So, it’s kind of funny because as much as I have been around a lot, I never really talked to Tony (Khan) about coming into AEW. And a lot of it was, this is probably going to sound bad and I’m sure people are going to take this out of context, but honestly, a lot of it was talking to Jon. Of being like, ‘Man, I want to get back into…I want to be back in the wrestling world. I miss being around it. I miss doing stuff.’ As he’s thinking about what the shows look like and his role on the shows and all of that, most of our conversations were internally between Jon and I about figuring out that I want to do something and come back. What that conversation is, how are we going to go about that? And him and Tony are obviously very close. They spend tons of time talking about things. I think it was more so them talking about it because I think a lot of people just thought I was sort of done with wrestling to a degree, and maybe they didn’t want to ask me to do something that they thought I didn’t want to do or they didn’t want to step on Jon’s toes. Or any of those things. Those are all very real things that could have been. I think it was just the timing of everything. I want to be there as a broadcaster, as a personality, I want to be able to help other people if they want help or need help on things. I want to be an ear for people any way that I can and yeah, just kinda use my eight years of experience having worked in WWE to see how I can help in AEW now.”

On how the deal came together: “It all happened really fast. All of a sudden, Jon and I had been talking about it and it felt like the next day, my manager is calling me, ‘They’re reaching out, the contract is coming through.’ Wow, that was like, a real quick turnaround. Holy shit.”

On her role in AEW: “Actually it’s funny because during all of this, I’ve not even talked to Tony all that much about it just because there’s not much that we need to talk about until now I’m there. You know? I think the lead up is, ‘Cool, he knows my skillset and knows what I’m bringing to the table.’ It’s more of a, ‘Let’s get you in here, let’s just start working and we’ll figure it out as we go.’ He knows what I bring to the table in terms of my years of working in this world and all that to the stuff that I’ve been able to do outside of wrestling. I think it’s a ‘figure it out as we go’ kind of situation. That sounds so vague, but it’s not like I’m main eventing anything. I’m going to be out there conducting interviews and being a personality for them. I think as those opportunities come up and we know that’s the narrative in which some of the storytelling is going to be told, I can come in and help out there.”

She also said she wouldn’t do commentary again.

If you use any quotes in this article, please credit The Sessions with an h/t to 411mania.com.