Pump Up The Volume: Renee Paquette Is Exploring New Ventures, But Her Ties To Wrestling Remain Strong

Renee Paquette is exploring her options outside of pro wrestling, but she has no plans to completely cut ties with the business.

Paquette recently spoke with WrestleZone Managing Editor Bill Pritchard about her move to The Volume, Fox Sports Radio’s Colin Cowherd’s new sports-focused podcast network that is co-produced by iHeartMedia. Paquette launched her own show, Oral Sessions with Renee Paquette, on its own in November before announcing the new deal to air on The Volume.

Paquette described the transition to The Volume as coming “out of left field”, explaining that she was looking for a new project after she had left WWE in August. She said that she wanted to do a long-form, casual interview series with interesting people from different circles, but knew wrestling was her first reach. After a handful of episodes, Cowherd reached out and praised the show, with Paquette noting that she didn’t know about his plans for the network until later on.

“That was just such a cool thing for me to have somebody like Colin—this new project that he’s launching, that obviously is like his baby—the fact that he wanted my show to be a part of that was just awesome. It was such a cool nod to the work that I had been doing already and as I said, it’s like we were just getting started,” Paquette explained, “just kinda getting my feet wet and getting the show out there and getting new listeners and all that. But yeah it’s such a cool marriage of wrestling and everything that Colin’s up to and all the other shows that are on there. So it’s been a really cool journey.”

After she left WWE, Paquette appeared on the Sports Illustrated Media Podcast and discussed what went into her decision, explaining that she felt like she was “spinning her wheels” once WWE Backstage had been cancelled. Despite leaving the promotion, Paquette has no plans of completely removing herself from pro wrestling at all and said it’s something she’ll always have a hand in.

Paquette pointed out that she has a strong connection to the business (it’s her ‘bread and butter’ and she still follows the work of her husband, Jon Moxley), but she also wants to explore other avenues and has found early success with Oral Sessions. The podcast itself does feature wrestlers as guests, but the title and format is more focused on having conversations, and it’s something she wants to explore more in the future.

“We’re all so multifaceted, there’s a million other things that I wanna do. I’ve got a cookbook coming out, I’ve got the podcast that I’ve started, and as much as that started out as ‘we’ve got a lot of wrestlers on’,” Paquette explained, “I want to have MMA fighters, I wanna have other athletes, I want to have on people from all different walks of life. When I came up with the idea of the show called Oral Sessions, it was about having conversations. It’s not necessarily about just wrestling, so that’s something I want to tap into.”

“I love working in TV, that’s a thing that I want to get back to once the world kinda opens up and other productions pick back up the way they had been prior,” Paquette said, “that’s something I wanna get back into that 100%. But just as the means of me kind of doing something in my down time, I mean you quit your job during a pandemic and it’s like, what are you gonna do? So to start doing a podcast and the fact that I’ve already been able to partner up with The Volume has been amazing for me. It’s been so cool to just like already have landed on something, and that’s something that’s completely my own, that’s such a great thing.”

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She now has the option to explore projects outside of wrestling, but Paquette said she has no desire to shed any labels. Pointing to the interesting dynamic of performers often wanting to distance themselves from the thing that brought them to the dance in the first place, she said it’s now just time to introduce people to another side of her and sees it as a positive experience.

“It’s funny when I actually did my interview with The Miz this week and he was talking about that, about how when he was doing The Real World and then trying to get into wrestling, he was always just seen as the reality TV guy. And then he really wanted to shed that [label] and now he’s known as the wrestling guy, but he really wants to do movies and he wants to host things. And it’s like we’re constantly trying to sort of like shed these things that we’ve been known for,” Paquette said, “yet that’s also the reason why we’re in the room to begin with.”

“If somebody brings me in for an audition for something or whatever, it’s generally because they’ve seen my work with wrestling and within WWE, so I don’t look to shy away from that or to not lean into that. I think there’s also something big to be said for how many people come from wrestling and really strike it big outside of wrestling as well because you have to be so versatile in that role. From doing live TV to memorizing promos to scripts changing on the fly to whatever,” Paquette explained, “ it’s like we become so adaptable in other environments that I think as soon as we step into another environment, people are like, ‘Oh my god, who is this person? Why did we not know about this?’ Because you only got to a little shred of it on TV prior.”

Paquette says her work in WWE has only benefitted her and she found great success in her time with the company. Noting that there are plenty of times performers get stereotyped, Paquette understands the situation but won’t let it hold her back from achieving the other goals she has.

“That’s up to me to take that time to reintroduce that side of myself to other people, and right now I have the time to do that because I’m not encumbered to only doing wrestling or only doing something. Now’s my time to be able to show other people that other side of me.”

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