Former WWE analyst and commentator Renee Paquette recently spoke with Shakiel Mahjouri from CBS Sports about all things pro-wrestling, including thoughts on her departure from WWE and how she was not affected by the company’s non-compete clause. Highlights are below.
On successfully transitioning out of WWE:
First of all, I’m very tired. I’m constantly working, which is great. You always want to have a busy schedule. That’s the way that I function. When I’m not busy, my brain is like, ‘What’s next? What’s next?’ And that can definitely be a bit of a place of anxiety for me, where I always feel like I need to keep going and working and working. One thing that I’ve learned over the course of this year and a half is patience. I think when I first left WWE, it was sort of that feeling of like, ‘What am I going to do? What’s going to make the most sense’ and kind of figuring like, ‘You know, maybe I’ll go work for another network, maybe I’ll go do another studio show somewhere.’ But when I left in like peak COVID time, that was not the case. I mean, all productions had halted. Nobody was hiring new people. That just was not the case, which was really that kind of a blessing in disguise where it’s like, ‘Well, I’m going to start doing something myself anyways.’ And I’ve always really wanted to be in control of what my own narrative was. I’ve always wanted to really, I guess, create my own content and be able to put that out there. But that being said, it’s a lot more work than just turning on a camera and turning a microphone and making something happen. It’s like there’s so much more behind that. So I was really lucky to join up with The Volume really quickly after I had launched the ‘Oral Sessions’, which is now ‘The Sessions.’ But yeah, I was able to jump on with them really quickly and that’s been super beneficial to me in the sense of their production over there is awesome. They helped me a ton with getting the social clips and getting the stuff ready for YouTube. All that stuff. There’s no way I would be able to do that without them. Being able to do the segment on NHL Network with Jackie Redmond, was one of the things that kind of popped up. I’ve been a hockey fan, obviously my whole life. You grew up in Canada, you don’t really have a choice but to lean into the sport. So it was really cool to be able to circle back around and work with Jackie. For her and I did just get to have a little bit more of a fun, loose interview-style segment that we do with NHL Network. So that’s been a ton of fun. And then jumping into the radio world. That was not something I had really thought much about. That has been a learning curve as well of realizing, ‘Yes, we are recording it in the sense that we are now. But it’s not television. It’s long-form.’ Learning to take my time. It’s finding that right energy level. It doesn’t have to be the energy of TV, but kind of brings it down so that you can go the duration of three hours while also dabbling in a sport that I had not really worked in at all. I mean, we talk pro wrestling, but we actually talk a lot of MMA and combat sports a lot more. It’s really just been such a learning curve and the patience of not being like, I need to have that one thing right now. I kind of put my iron in a couple of fires and I’ve been letting them all kind of burn and build on their own. And there’s something really organic and cool about that that that I get to have ownership over. It’s awesome.
Says the non-compete clause didn’t really matter to her:
It didn’t really affect it because, truly, when I was leaving WWE, I wasn’t looking to go from one place to another. At the time, everything I was able to do with WWE, I did so much there. You know, I literally wore every hat I could possibly wear there and it was awesome, but I wanted to take that and turn it into something different. I didn’t want to take that and — I don’t want to say it’s a parallel move. It’s not that because I don’t know what the opportunity would be within AEW. Maybe there would be something really great there, but I really wanted to take what I had done with WWE and move it into just a different path. I really just wanted to kind of use that as my way to kind of create something for myself.
On expanding beyond pro-wrestling:
It really made me have to say ‘OK, what are we going to do?’ I am known for pro wrestling. I’m never going to not be in that world in some capacity. That’s why ‘The Sessions’ is cool because I get to interview all of these people that I have built these incredible relationships with over the years. I just had an episode with Dax Harwood come out. That’s one that I think is a prime example of really being able to peel back the layers of this person that you see on TV versus who he is as a man. I don’t think that that conversation would have happened had he and I not had the relationship that we already have. In order to know that you’re in a good, safe, trusted space and we can have this conversation. The wrestling aspect of that I will always love and I love having those chats. But also on the other side, when you branch out and want to do things that aren’t wrestling. I had on a marriage and sex therapist on my podcast. It was one of those episodes where I was like, ‘Oh my God, that was so fun.’ I went into it feeling so tired, a little overwhelmed with what the week had thrown at me. But then I sat down with Dr. Lisa Paz and we had this amazing conversation and it was completely enlightening. I had so many people, like my friends, reaching out to me. People that I didn’t even know were actually always listening to the podcast being like, ‘Holy. That conversation was amazing.’ That’s the thing for me is being able to take my platform and branch out into things that are of interest to me. Even though some wrestling fans might be like, ‘Oh, well, if you’re not talking about X, Y and Z,’ I’m not going to tune in, but to know that some people are still listening and following me into some of those other avenues is really cool.