What is going on with Miro in AEW? He went from the hottest new acquisition in the company, the biggest, baddest dude in the promotion with a god complex and the muscle to back it up, to a part-timer who occasionally shows up on Dynamite or Rampage but hasn't really had a long-term storyline since his run against the House of Black, which was ultimately put on ice due to the leave of absences of Buddy Matthews and Malakai Black.
Has the former namesake of Rusev Day decided to focus more on his acting opportunities instead of in-ring accolades, or is the hangup instead on Tony Khan's side of the equation? Fortunately, Miro's shoot wife, CJ Perry, aka WWE's Lana, stopped by Busted Open Radio and was asked about her husband's current run in AEW, as transcribed by The Wrestling Observer.
“I mean, he wants to be champion so he's not going to be happy until he's champion,” she responded. “I'm just going to leave it at that.”
When she was then asked about his time on AEW television, or his lack thereof, Perry was willing to dish a little more, comparing how Khan books his AEW “favorites” to the similar strategies of Vince McMahon and even Hunter Hearst Helmsley, aka Paul “Triple H” Levesque.
“I have a lot of opinions about this. Tony Khan has a vision. At the end of the day, if it's 100% real, I think there's this illusion at AEW that the talent book the show. That was definitely the conversation, ‘Oh you go there, you're going to basically become whatever you're made of' but at the end of the day, he's booking the show.”
“It's really no different than WWE, it's just a different director and a different person's point of view. It's like comparing NBC to HBO but at the end of the day, you still have the exec who is going to make that final call and that's what it is. Tony Khan has his favorites and he's going to push the favorites just like Vince [McMahon] would push his favorites, just like Hunter is going to push his people. It's show business, it's nothing personal, it just is what it is.”
“I think my husband is incredible. I feel Vince really valued him in that way and saw that. They hit heads a lot of times towards the end on creative differences. Vince really wanted him as a villain and Miro wanted to explore this new world.”
Lana opens up about trading the wrestling world for The Surreal Life.
Talking with Sean Ross Sapp about her new venture into reality television, Perry described how her time in the ring helped to prepare her for the show, as transcribed by Fightful.
“I feel, in life, you have to work really hard. You have to be diligent and disciplined, have a good attitude. You might try, try, try over and over again and get ‘No’s’, but all that work will, at some point, pay off,” she said. “All the big jobs in my life, that kind of happened. With Pitch Perfect, randomly got the job, and the Surreal Life, the same thing. It blows my mind of how many people—I believe that production was telling me they cast this for over eight months. I never auditioned for it. Literally, the day after I got released, I got a call from my manager being like, ‘The Surreal Life wants you.’ I was like, ‘Wait, so the Surreal Life with like Brigitte Nielson that I based my entire character off on WWE? Like Flavor Flav?’”
“Yes, yes. It’s so crazy. So I was blown away. Really, really blown away. I was really, really nervous going into it because I had just gotten released. So I was going through all these emotional ups and downs and trying to figure it out, what do I want to do? What am I going to do? I was so focused on everything wrestling, WWE, wanted to become Champion. It was interesting being thrown into this situation where I’m living with seven strangers who are all celebrities and from all different walks of life, all different perspectives, different cultures, different religions, different careers, and we’re put in this huge, beautiful house in Mexico City with no doors, by the way. That, on the other side, that’s giving me anxiety, and cameras at all times. Not just sometimes, but literally cameras everywhere, mics everywhere—even in the bathroom.”
Will Perry ever return to the professional wrestling world, maybe as a manager for Mero in AEW? Only time will tell, but it's clear Perry isn't shying away from attention.
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