Renee Paquette (Renee Young) was interviewed this week on “Insight with Chris Van Vliet.” She covered a ton of topics including her run in WWE, her new podcast, Jon Moxley, AEW, and more.
Paquette talked about interviewing The Rolling Stones for WWE. She said, “The very first thing I did for WWE was when I was still in Toronto, they said “Can we fly you to New York and have you interview The Rolling Stones on the Red Carpet?” I said yes, 100%. It must have been very early on them (WWE) figuring out what they wanted to do with The Network, because I think the Stones were using the back end of how they served out their PPVs to broadcast one of their concerts. That’s how that tie came together. They had me fly into New York. I got to talk to Mick Jagger on the Red Carpet. He was so charming and lovely. That was the very first thing I did, but they brought me down to do that which was really cool.”
Renee was asked, “At what point did you start thinking about life after WWE?”. She said, “A few years ago. I would say probably, and my timeline is always messed up, but I would say two or three years ago. I asked for my release from WWE because I was spinning my wheels, which is where I ended up when I left. But, I had been spinning my wheels. It felt like there really wasn’t much else for me to do there. I was doing backstage interviews, hosting a bunch of different Network shows, doing commentary, coming off of commentary, just all these things. I was like, well, I’m not a wrestler here so I’m never going to get to really do what I want to do. I work for a wrestling company and I’m not a wrestler, so the things I want to do career wise, I might not be able to actually achieve those here. So, I asked for my release and they would not give me my release which ended up being a good thing because it was like this whole drawn out process. I remember the day, I was like, I’m going to do it. I’m going to go into the truck and try to get out of here and I was like, I grew my fuc*ing big boy bal*s out and I’m like, here we go. I’m going to do it. Then the next week, they were like, yeah, about that. You are actually not leaving. I was like, ok, I didn’t know it can work like that. I had like a year left on my contract. They dangled the carrot of they have all these big plans for you and we have all these things we want you to do. One of those things was Mixed Match Challenge. But, ultimately it led me to being able to do commentary and getting to put that feather in my cap. So, had I actually left that first time, I don’t think that my time there or my career there would be what it is now. Obviously, time has been spent and more important things have been done, but I’m glad the time I spent there that I was able to knock off some big bucket list things.”
Renee on the rumors of her going to AEW: “Maybe I’ll wrestle Brandi and then our kids will wrestle. Who knows? (she laughs). You look at AEW and I think everything they are doing is fantastic. I’m not saying I wouldn’t do something there. I for sure would if the right thing came up, but it’s not the thing I am chasing down. I think my time in WWE was so great and my time in wrestling has been so great, but I don’t want to have that be the only thing that I do. I don’t want to pigeonhole myself into being the wrestling girl. I will always have that in my wheelhouse and have that be a thing that I lean on, but I think there are so many other things that I want to do that I think just going right to working another wrestling company would take away from my whole purpose of wanting to walk away.”
If you use any portion of the quotes from this article please credit Chris Van Vliet with a h/t to WrestlingNews.co for the transcription. Also, be sure to subscribe to “Insight with Chris Van Vliet” on your mobile device by clicking here if you have an iOS device or here on your Android device.
