CJ Perry discusses her arrival in AEW.
The former WWE superstar spoke on this topic during a recent chat with Chris Van Vilet on his Insight program. Perry begins by commenting on her debut, which occurred at All Out in Chicago the Sunday after CM Punk had been fired.
I was really excited. I was so excited to return to wrestling, especially in Chicago. I love Chicago. I actually debuted in WWE in Chicago. My first live promo was in Chicago. CM Punk had just left, so everyone’s like, ‘You gonna be okay? There’s gonna be CM Punk chants.’ I feel like I held my own, with Miro. Then the first time the ‘We want Lana’ chants happened was in Chicago, and Miro came out. At the time, he was Rusev, he came out with a really bad Russian lawyer, and it was on my birthday, and they started chanting, ‘We want Lana.’ So that was cool. My official babyface turn happened there in WWE, so it was really cool to be able to have that special moment with AEW of debuting there. Because I love Chicago, and the fans have always rooted for me so much. So it’s really awesome to be able have that special connection now with AEW as well.
Perry later reveals that Miro was pushing for her debut to happen at the All In stadium show in London, but that Tony Khan had a vision of her debuting in Chicago.
Miro was pushing, a lot of this was his idea, a lot of the story. He wanted it to be in London, but Tony really had a vision for it to happen in Chicago, and he’s from Chicago and loves Chicago and I love Chicago. So here we go.
Van Vilet later asks Perry about whether she thought of coming to AEW when Miro first joined in 2020. She says that she was still in WWE at the time and getting featured every week. When her time at WWE ended, she felt like she needed a little break.
Well, when Miro first joined AEW, I was still in WWE. So that was in 2020, he started there in September, I think. So I was in WWE still, and I had a very lucrative contract. I was on TV every week, so we both thought it made sense for me to stay. Then I finished my time a year. Miro wanted me to come over to AEW, and he was plugging me in the story, and that’s how I got the name ‘Hot and Flexible.’ So I needed a little bit of a break. At the beginning, I wanted to be gone for a little bit, and I wanted to do things…I didn’t want to jump right back on the road. So I took about a year, and it was just trying to figure out the time. Tony Khan had great things going on with his show, and I had things going on, Miro had things. It’s all about timing.
In a separate interview, Perry spoke about her goals in AEW and how she hopes to manage a number of champions. You can read about that here.
