When CJ Perry, aka WWE's Lana, made her debut at AEW All Out following Miro‘s shockingly popular “meat” match with Powerhouse Hobbs, it turned heads around the professional wrestling world.

Sure, the idea of Perry coming to AEW wasn't particularly surprising, as she is married to Miro and has been out of WWE for a few years now, but how she debuted was another story entirely, as the concept of the “Redeemer” rejecting his bride in order to go it on his own was surprising, especially when the former manager decided to restart her business and look for new talent under her better half's nose.

But why? If Perry wasn't going to be part of Miro's act, why did she take her talents to AEW anyway, especially since even casual fans know her connection to the man formerly known as Rusev? Why didn't she try her hand at in-ring action once more, something WWE tried on multiple occasions with varying results? Well, as Perry pointed out in her conversation with Chris Van Vliet in an interview on his Insight show, she has one goal when it comes to professional wrestling: To become a Paul Heyman-level manager.

“Such an interesting question. So I want to be the best of all time. I want to be the best wrestling manager of all time,” CJ Perry said via Wrestling News. “I want to be when people think of like, people often want to be managed by Paul Heyman because he is the best manager of all time right now. I want that spot and so I want people to be like, ‘I want CJ Perry to manage me.’ I would rather do that than try to become champion or fight for whatever championships and be the best hustler for those people to be champions and create a legacy and a name that way. I just feel that's my calling. So if at some point I gotta fight some b**ches in the ring, of course, I'll fight some b**ches in the ring.”

On paper, if you want to become a manager in professional wrestling, Heyman is just about the best mind one can model their behavior after, as he's a certified first-ballot Hall of Famer who has shepherded some of the best performers in the business through some of the best chapters of their careers. If Perry can build the same sort of legacy in AEW, a promotion that doesn't exactly have a longstanding tradition of manager-led staples, it could give her a unique niche within the promotion that a few managers – Vickie Guerrero, Dan Lambert – have tried but no one has succeeded at with any real longevity.

CJ Perry reveals why she didn't debut with Miro in AEW.

Elsewhere in her conversation with Chris Van Vliet, CJ Perry was asked why she didn't debut alongside Miro in AEW when he initially took his talents to Tony Khan's company following an up-and-down run in WWE that ended with one of the weirdest love triangle – or, eventually, love square – angles you will ever see on a professional wrestling show.

While there were some clear reasons why the duo didn't debut as a unified act back in 2020, as Perry was still employed by WWE at the time, the actual conditions of her debut had more to do with storytelling than a specific desire to rush back into the ring.

“Well, when Miro first joined AEW, I was still in WWE. That was in 2020, and he started there September, I think, and so I couldn't. I was still in WWE, and I had a very lucrative contract. I was on TV every week, so we both thought it made sense for me to stay. Then I finished my time a year later, and Miro wanted me to come over to AEW, and he was plugging me into the story. That's how I got the name Hot and Flexible. I needed a little bit of a break. At the beginning. I wanted to be home for a little bit, and I wanted to do things. I didn't want to jump right back on the road and so I took a little bit, like about a year, and it was just trying to figure out the time, you know, like, Tony Khan has great things going on his show, and it's just I had things going on and Miro had things and we just, it's all about timing.”

Would it have been better to debut Perry and Miro together instead of the bizarre “Best Man” gimmick he worked while wearing supreme fits next to Kip Sabian? Sure thing, but hey, at this point, the past is the past; the intrigue surrounding Perry and Miro's current angle, it seems, was clearly worth the wait.