Former WWE Star Admits He Wanted To Upset Vince McMahon With Public Release Request

While appearing on a recent episode of the Wrestling Inc. podcast, former WWE star Mike Kanellis (Mike Bennett) admitted that he was trying to upset Vince McMahon by publicly requesting his release on Twitter.

“They were not happy, but I had known that it would piss them off, and that was the point because I was mad because I had gone to them constantly. And this is what, I think, a lot of wrestling fans don’t understand is that me asking for my release was just a last desperation effort. I had done all I could do behind the scenes.

“I had talked to Vince. I had talked to head of talent relations. I had asked for my release privately backstage. Twice I had asked for it backstage privately to which I was denied. My wife never asked for her release, which drives me nuts. My wife was fine staying there. She was like, ‘I’m good. I’ll do what they want me to do.’ She was good, and so like, it was always just me.

“I wanted to be done, and I had discussions with her. I was like, ‘if I ask for my release, are you okay with that?’ And she was OK, and so like this was a boiling point of building up to the point where I finally, I had reached out to them.”

Bennett explained that he tried desperately to get in contact with talent relation, but after being ignored for several hours, he decided the only way this was going to be seen was by going public with it.

He explained that a lot of people were very angry with his decision.

“I know when you say stuff like that, it doesn’t hold the company in a good light, and talent relations called me, and they said Vince is pissed. My reaction was, ‘good’. That was my thought. I went good. Maybe he’ll listen to me now, but it is what it is, and again, I did it. Things happened. I hold no ill will. It just needed to be done. I needed to be free. I needed to go do what I wanted.”

You can listen to the full interview by clicking here.

Thanks to WrestlingInc. for the transcription.

• wwe
• Vince McMahon
• Mike bennett
• Mike Kanellis

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