Pro-wrestling star Mike Benett (fka Mike Kanellis in WWE) spoke on former ROH world champion Matt Taven’s new program “Trending With Taven” to discuss his return to ROH, and how he feels about his post-WWE career. Highlights are below.
Explains why he left ROH five years ago:
What happened five years ago, professionally was the biggest mistake of my life. Hands down. Without a doubt, that was the biggest mistake of my life. Personally, I had to do it. I had to find out who I was as a man. I had to go prove that Mike Bennett on his own could be Mike Bennett on his own. But hindsight’s always 20/20, and you look back, and you go, ‘What were you thinking? Why?’ I had everything I wanted right here. Maybe it was ego. I don’t know, I mean that was five years ago. I’m a different person now than I was five years ago. I don’t want to say I regret it because I wouldn’t be who I am today if I didn’t take that chance.
On the changes he’s made to himself since leaving:
I don’t take things for granted anymore. When I was younger, when I first started here, I think there was a part of me that just felt like everything should just come to me. Everything should be given to me. But you realize as you go through, that’s not how life works and that’s damn sure not how Ring of Honor works. I realized that I had to start holding myself accountable. I became a dad, I overcame addiction, I did all these things, I bought a house. I became a dad again. Two beautiful kids, a beautiful wife, like all these things, they mold you and they shape you into who you are. You’re hungry now. You’re motivated. I don’t just wrestle for me anymore.
How he’s feeling motivated, driven, and angry:
Sometimes the world, sometimes the universe, sometimes life just has a way of bringing everything together, and sometimes it’s a perfect storm. For all the Ring of Honor fans that don’t know me, what you’re going to see is a motivated, driven, just completely insane work ethic person who’s just dying to get out there and prove to the entire world that I am everything that I say that I am. I am really, really pissed off and a pissed off, motivated, hungry, driven Mike Bennett is not somebody I would want to mess with.
Full interview is below. (H/T and transcribed by WrestleZone)
