Renee Paquette: AEW signing ‘happened really fast,’ no plans to do commentary

Renee Paquette has opened up about her decision to sign with AEW. 

The newest member of the AEW broadcast team released an episode of The Sessions on Thursday. The podcast was recorded in the days leading up to her debut on Dynamite. During the discussion, Paquette commented on what led to her returning to the wrestling business. 

“Obviously, we watch so much wrestling in this house, we talk so much wrestling in this house and it was always an odd, displaced sort of feeling anytime I went to shows with Jon because I’m always used to being at the shows but working and being useful and contributing,” Paquette said. “So, being there for the duration of Jon being at AEW and not doing that and just being there, being like Jon’s wife, I’m just hanging out, I’ll pop through catering and grab a bite. It’s just a different feeling going there as a guest as opposed to now being, oh my god yeah cool, I go here now.” 

Paquette also spoke about her departure from WWE and noted that she is grateful for her time in the company.  

“I just felt like I had done everything there that I could possibly do. Looking back at my time in WWE, I just would like to reiterate as well because I feel like it can get very muddy in these conversations because people become very territorial about WWE vs. AEW and all that. I want nothing to do with any of that. I love so many people at both companies. WWE was so great to me for years, of course, yeah I can have my gripes about things but who couldn’t about any job? They gave me such a great platform and I really did have a great time there and obviously, this opportunity now with AEW would not be afforded to me had I not had the reputation and career that I was able to have in WWE.” 

Paquette was asked about how her deal with AEW came together. 

“It’s kind of funny because, as much as I had been around a lot, I really never really talked to Tony [Khan] about coming into AEW. A lot of it was – this is probably going to sound bad, and I’m sure people are going to take this out of context – but honestly a lot of it was talking to Jon, of being, like ‘Man, I want to be back in the wrestling world, I miss being around it, I miss doing stuff.'”

“Most of our conversations were internally between Jon and I about figuring out, like ‘Yeah, I want to do something, I want to come back, I don’t know what that conversation is, how are we going to go about that?'”

“Him and Tony are obviously very close. They spend tons of time talking about things. I think it was more so them talking about it because I think a lot of people just thought that I was sort of done with wrestling to a degree and maybe they didn’t want to ask me to do something they thought that I didn’t want to do, or they didn’t want to step on Jon’s toes, and those are all very real things that could have been.” 

Paquette would continue to say that the deal to bring her into AEW all came together quickly. 

“It all happened really fast, it literally happened so fast where all of a sudden Jon and I had been talking about it and then it felt like the next day my manager is calling me going, ‘Oh yeah, they are reaching out, the contract is coming through’ I was like, ‘Wow, that was a quick turnaround.'”

“During all of this, I’ve not even talked to Tony all that much about it just because there’s not really been much that we’ve needed to talk about until now I’m there.”

“He knows my skillset, he knows what I’m bringing to the table so I think it’s more of a let’s get you in here, let’s just start working, and I’ll think we’ll figure it out as we go. He knows what I bring to the table in terms of my years of working in this world and all of that, to the stuff that I’ve been able to do outside of wrestling.” 

Paquette said she has no plans to work on commentary with AEW but would if the opportunity made sense. She did tease another announcement is upcoming, but she’s not able to talk about it just yet. 

“I still have one more announcement, but I can’t announce it yet, so everybody just let your buttholes keep puckering and we’ll drop it soon.”