Tony Khan DELIGHTED With This AEW Newcomer’s Impact

Tony Khan is delighted with what Renee Paquette is already bringing to the table in All Elite Wrestling.

The AEW founder and CEO said as much of the latest addition to his broadcast team in an interview with Sports Illustrated last week. Speaking with Justin Barrasso, Khan stated that while Paquette was new to AEW, she was a familiar face, referencing her prominence in the wrestling community. Claiming Renee “brings amazing presence” to company television, Khan noted the value of having her around.

Said Khan:

“Renee is new to AEW, but she’s a very familiar face. Working with her is such a great pleasure. She’s a consummate professional and brings so much knowledge and experience to our production backstage, and she’s brought her amazing presence to AEW TV. We’re very excited to have her, and this week she’s doing a sitdown interview. Her brain is so valuable for us to have backstage producing the shows.”

Paquette debuted for AEW on its 12 October episode of Dynamite, working a familiar role as a presenter and interviewer. This came following speculation of her heading to Khan’s company stemming from a report stating WWE personnel believed she was heading to AEW. WWE had previously contacted the Canadian over a potential return to the promotion she was with from 2012 to 2020, doing so as part of a reshuffle of its own broadcast teams.

Post-WWE, Paquette started a hugely successful podcast, The Sessions, released a cookbook, and welcomed her and husband Jon Moxley’s first child, Nora Murphy Good, into the world.

Cathy Kelley Reportedly Negotiated Outside WWE Before Re-Signing

Monday night’s episode of “WWE Raw” will be Cathy Kelley’s third appearance since returning to the company on October 6, when WWE announced an overhaul of its announce teams. As it turns out, there was reportedly a point where Kelley was close to making her return to wrestling in a promotion other than WWE.

According to Fightful Select, Kelley had actually been in talks with AEW about potentially joining the promotion earlier this year. Sources added that talks were advanced enough that Kelley even had conversations with AEW Owner and CEO Tony Khan, with talks being described as promising between the two sides.

As is known now, a deal ultimately didn’t come to pass. No reason was given to Fightful as to why Kelley and AEW weren’t able to come to a deal, which side ultimately nixed the talks, and how close things got in regards to putting pen to paper. Despite not being able to reach a deal, it was noted that Kelley and AEW remained on good terms prior to her joining WWE a few weeks ago, and there was no mention of animosity between the two sides.

While Kelley is now officially back in WWE, AEW appears to have found its own interviewer extraordinaire in the form of Renee Paquette. The former WWE personality joined AEW just two weeks ago when the company crossed the border for “Dynamite” in Paquette’s hometown of Toronto, Canada. Paquette signing with AEW followed rumors she was joining the company after it was reported that WWE had approached Paquette regarding a return, only for her to turn down the offer.

Charly Caruso Says Romantic Storyline With Angel Garza Was “Randomly Stopped”

Charly Caruso, the host of Raw Talk and a backstage interviewer for Monday Night Raw, has revealed that a romantic storyline featuring her and Angel Garza was “randomly stopped” by WWE’s creative team.

For several months, especially during Paul Heyman’s stint as Executive Director of Raw, WWE teased that Caruso and Garza would eventually hook up as an on-screen couple. Caruso would blush every time she’d interview Garza, who proceeded to flirt with the WWE announcer on a weekly basis.

While responding to a fan on Twitter who wondered why the storyline was dropped, Caruso tweeted, “It also randomly stopped.”

Garza, who was drafted to the red brand during the WWE Draft, has always been presented as a heartthrob or ladies man by WWE creative. Besides Charly Caruso, he has also been seen trying to court Lana and Demi Burnett on Raw.

As noted, Garza is presently recovering from a torn quad that he suffered during the WWE Clash of Champions pay-per-view last month.

Charly Caruso Reveals Other Job She Turned Down To Go To Work For WWE

WWE broadcaster Charly Caruso was recently a guest on Chasing Glory with Lilian Garcia. During the interview, Caruso discussed the backstory of how she landed a job with WWE.

Caruso said it all started when she attended an episode of SmackDown Live with a friend. She had just finished her duties at her previous job, and her friend had backstage passes to the show. A lifelong WWE fan, she couldn’t pass up the opportunity.

“I was living in Indianapolis for a while, I kind of explored some other opportunities once my contract came up, and it just so happened that SmackDown was in Indianapolis. I was with a friend of mine who was a huge WWE fan. He had backstage passes and he had asked me if I wanted to go because when I was growing up I was really into it. I was into it at the height of the Attitude Era for a couple of years, which I was in about the 6th or 7th grade,” she explained. “I loved it, so him and I would talk about it sometimes and he had said that he had a couple of backstage passes to the show and would I like to go. I said of course I would. I come to SmackDown and I am backstage just hanging out and I see Mark Carrano, who I recognized from Total Divas.”

In a case of “right place, right time” Caruso took advantage of the moment and introduced herself to Carrano. She passed along her broadcasting reel and she eventually received an audition with WWE. Once she was offered a job, she had to turn down another position she had accepted.

“At this point I am technically unemployed, had a few projects going on but I wasn’t sure what my next move was going to be. I approached him and said that I am a sports broadcaster and asked him if I could pass along my reel. If anything he can just look at it and give me some critiques about it, he said sure, why not? I send it to him and I don’t hear anything back for a couple of months, and then I reach out to him again, and he said to re-send it to him. I then send it to him again and he says that he thinks that I am good and that he was going to pass down my information to Michael Cole. From there he was like, we want you to come down and audition,” she said. “That was how it all started, but at this point I had verbally already accepted a position to be a sports anchor in Washington D.C at the old station that I had interned at. I had to backtrack after the audition and WWE coming forth and offering me a position, so I had to tell the station that I know that I said I was going to take the job but after thinking about it I am actually going to go with WWE so here I am.”

Caruso said she has no regrets about her decision to turn down that other job because working for WWE was a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity. She said even though the travel does get to be tiresome at times, she has enjoyed every bit of her experience so far.

“I totally made the right choice because at that point, I was thinking to myself–you know, I had spoken to a few different people. People that I had been in touch with at ESPN, past mentors that I worked with in the sports industry, my agent; we all just came to the conclusion that this was an opportunity that I just couldn’t pass up. I mean, I didn’t see myself 10 years down the line where I was going to accept a position with WWE,” she said. “I was thinking, hypothetically 10 years down the road I could still go to Washington D.C. and be a sports anchor; that is always going to be there so it has been such a great platform, and getting to meet so many different people and to have this experience on an international platform, and traveling. I love traveling. Sometimes you’re like I just want to sleep in my bed, but like any job, you take the good with the bad. Sometimes traveling is not bad, but it does get to be a lot sometimes.”