WWE continued their slow rollout of Mike and Maria Kanellis on Tuesday night, July 4. The couple had another run-in with the awkwardly apologetic, Huey Lewis-loving Sami Zayn on SmackDown, then made their way to the post show for their first ever appeareance on Talking Smack.
It was there that Daniel Bryan and Renee Young got to the bottom of why the couple who used to be known as Michael Bennett and Maria Kanellis-Bennett are both now using the former “Divas Search” contestant’s surname:
You think it’s bold, but we’re ahead of the curve. I took her name. She is a strong, powerful woman. And like I said, like you [Bryan] said - you follow my career for a certain amount of years and I was doing the same thing over and over and over again. That’s the definition of insanity, right? And all of a sudden this strong wonderful woman came into my life and brought me love. The least I could do is take her last name.
Plus... Mike Kanellis. It’s powerful It’s very powerful. And I don’t think it’s that strange. To me it’s normal.
Someone’s gotta start it, and it might as well be me. It might as well be us.
It’s a good answer, but I personally hope they leave it at this and don’t address it again.
The couple who can’t stop with public displays of affection and constantly posts cutesy romantic memes on their social media is a nice twist on a heel gimmick. When Maria turns up the volume on it and says they’re representing true love for the pitiful masses who will never experience the real thing... mix that in with their 80s power ballad theme song and that’s great heat.
Mocking Mike as being less-than-a-man because he’s a loving, respectful partner puts them in the “why am I supposed to hate them again?” realm we frequently find ourselves in with WWE these days.
So he’s Mike Kanellis now, okay? Let’s move on.
And bring on that Zayn feud.