Maria Kanellis, former WWE, ROH, and AEW star, had an unceremonious exit from professional wrestling when she departed Tony Khan's company at the end of January 2025. Kanellis has since gone on to create her own businesses away from the professional wrestling industry, all while being a mother. Kanellis recently appeared on "Wrestling Life Hall of Fame" and spoke about where she is in life right now."[I'm] not very involved with wrestling at all. You know, that's not saying that the door is shut, but I'm really enjoying what I'm doing now," she said.Kanellis has her own florist business, and has started working in event management. She revealed she's also in the process of writing a book. Kanellis said the way she got out of wrestling wasn't how she wanted to go, and it's taken her time to work through that."It just kind of abruptly ended, and it took me a long time to move past that and be like, 'But I spent 20 years in it. Why don't I have this send-off?'" she said. "And I didn't. I didn't have a send-off. Which is fine. It took me a while to accept it, but now I'm thankful for it, because it gave me the opportunity to try other things and be involved with other things."She said she believes there's a time and place for closure. Kanellis hasn't seen an opportunity to get back into the industry, however, as no company has reached out with anything she's excited about."If something comes along that I think will bring me joy, or it gives me the opportunity to work with my Kingdom one more time, that would be it," she said.If you use any quotes from this article, please credit "Wrestling Life Hall of Fame" and provide a h/t to Wrestling Inc. for the transcription.
