Source: f4wonline.com
CJ Perry, the former Lana in WWE,
talked to Chris Jericho on his podcast about her WWE tenure, getting released, and what she hopes her future holds -- as long as it has a no-cut clause.
She said she was completely blindsided by getting the call from John Laurinaitis and thought it was about an outside TV project WWE had just given approval to. She got the call when a lot of her family was at a house she and husband Miro are renting so she could train more. Her heart dropped when she got the call, but she was also relieved.
Perry said she was texting with Mandy Rose at the time so she was the first person to know, followed by Natalya who she called. Budget cuts were given as the reason and she was glad it was Laurinaitis who gave her the news as he's more business-like than Mark Carrano would have been.
She said Vince McMahon texted her to thank her for her contributions and work ethic. Perry was very complimentary of McMahon, Paul "Triple H" Levesque, Brian "Road Dogg" James and Billy Gunn for helping develop the Lana character in NXT and her WWE work. McMahon scripted her promos for her first year in WWE.
She isn't sure what's next as it's only been three weeks and she has a 90-day non-compete. She doesn't want to be done with wrestling and felt like she was improving in the ring, working out of TJ Wilson and Natalya's ring on the side to get better. If it is wrestling, she wants a no-cut clause due to the constant state of fear of being released wrestlers have.
She said it was hard to say goodbye to the Lana character as so much of it was what she wishes she could be.
On the Survivor Series match last year where she backed into a win by not really doing anything, Perry thought it would have got over bigger had it been in front of fans. McMahon wanted the finish as he and Shane McMahon thought it was hilarious if she didn't get in there at all because it had never been done. There was supposed to be a table spot in the match, but there was pushback from Roman Reigns because of a planned table spot in his match that night.
She talked a lot about the ThunderDome era and how working in front of no fans was difficult. She turned to social media to get feedback and was overwhelmed with the negativity. She was happy to be out of the Performance Center and live in the ThunderDome because McMahon couldn't "rethink the show and rewrite things 17 times." She also told a story of how she was once on set for 19 hours just to do a 60-second backstage segment.
She said she was surprised by how much she gets buried on Twitter and "the dirt sheets" and feels she resonates with a live crowd much more than with the Internet. Jericho said the live audience is reflective of 90% of the overall audience while the real hardcore fans are about 10%.
In the hour-plus podcast, Perry also talked about the rise of the Rusev/Lana team and why it got split up, his release, getting put through a table for nine straight weeks, and the heat she got for her engagement picture to Rusev/Miro getting to social media even though she didn't post it.
