Renee Paquette was a recent guest on Sports Media with Richard Deitsch to discuss a variety of subjects, most notably how she misses being on television and how she thinks WWE Hall of Famer Beth Phoenix should be a suitable fit on the Raw commentary team. Highlights are below.
Says she misses being on TV:
I miss the people so much. Those people become friends and family. You spend so much time with them. That’s the hardest part is being away from people. You stay in contact with people once you’re kind of out of the fold. It’s just not the same so that’s the thing I miss the most. But I think from the professional side of it, I miss doing TV. I miss being on TV, whether it’s wrestling or not. I miss that whole atmosphere. I mean yeah, there’s definitely times that you miss the production side of things, even just seeing the production crew and whatnot but just like that big event feel, you know? I think that’s something that I miss. Like having the pyro go off and getting ready for that countdown, when the doors have opened. Well not like we’re doing that right now but, as the show starts to get ready and that energy starts to come alive, that everyone gets ready to perform, I do miss that but I think — I just miss [being on] TV right now and as much as I’m staying occupied with doing my podcast and I’ve got my cookbook coming out and creating a human, there are things that I miss. I actually always thought this was a stupid side note, but I always figured that when I was pregnant that I’d get to be gigantic on TV and that was something that I was genuinely looking forward to. So I’m a little bummed that I don’t get to be like the size of a house on TV. I always thought that-that would be really great. But yeah, I miss doing my job and I don’t necessarily mean my job in WWE. There are aspects of that-that I kind of miss but there’s the freedom of it that I’ve really been enjoying as in sort of figuring out what I really want my next step to be and that was really sort of part of the whole thing [with] me leaving as well. Like, ‘What do I want to do?’ And I’m still figuring that out about what exactly I want to do, what’s going to fulfill me. I always come back to the, ‘Damn, how do I get the Kelly Ripa gig?’ So I’m trying to figure out what the stepping stones are to kind of put me in line for something in that world. That’s something I would love to do.
On Beth Phoenix:
I think that we will [see another woman at the RAW (or SmackDown) commentary desk]. Absolutely we will. As much as I was like sort of the test rabbit for that and however we wanna look at that whether you say it was successful or wasn’t successful, it was something that happened and we were all learning and we were all figuring out like I was figuring out what the hell I was doing. I was trying to figure out what my role was there. Vince [McMahon] was figuring out what it was like having a female on commentary. Kevin Dunn was learning what it was like having a female on commentary and the fans. I mean obviously the best person for that gig [is] Beth Phoenix. I think she’s fantastic. I think she’s just so good at what she does. She’s just so smart and her love and passion for wrestling is number one for her, aside from her family and whatnot. But, you can feel that when she’s talking and she’s been very lucky in the sense of working at NXT in that more nurturing environment and learning how to get better and taking that time, getting in the booth and she’s been able to work with a series of different announcers as well so I think that’s something that’s really beneficial as well too whether she’s working with Vic Joseph or Tom Phillips, working with Wade Barrett who’s now there. She’s just got so many different characters that she can jump on there and figure out how to navigate those waters so I think by the time it [comes for] her to do RAW or SmackDown, I think she’d fit in totally seamlessly and I think the fans would love it. I think they’ll be ready to hear that and I think she would absolutely crush it.
(H/T and transcribed by Post Wrestling)