Maria Kanellis-Bennett has a friend of her husband to thank for inspiring her to use the ‘First Lady’ moniker.

Kanellis-Bennett is the latest woman to be described as the ‘first lady of wrestling,’ following the likes of Miss Elizabeth and Missy Hyatt in WCW & ECW.

In a recent appearance on the “AEW Unrestricted” podcast, Kanellis-Bennett explained the inspiration behind her use of the moniker. She said,

“We were actually just sitting in my husband’s parent’s basement. And his friend at the time said ‘What about being the First Lady?’ And I was like ‘Oh, I kind of like that.’ And it’s a bit of an homage to Miss Elizabeth because she was called the First Lady as well. She was such an integral part of the matches, even though she wasn’t wrestling.

“And I think that that’s important to be a real manager, not just for show … When you’re out there, you want to be a part of it,” she added. “You want to do something for these matches. It was a bit of that. And at the time, when I came into Ring of Honor for the first time. There weren’t a whole lot of women that were part of the company. So it was also playing off of that.”

Kanellis-Bennett and her husband Mike debuted for AEW in October of last year, alongside Matt Taven, days after the trio left Impact Wrestling.

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