Renee Paquette Gives an Update on Her Future in Pro Wrestling

Renee Paquette (fka Renee Young) announced her departure from WWE at the 2020 SummerSlam event. Now, nearly a full year later, the former WWE Backstage host has given another update on if she’ll remain apart of the pro wrestling world. Paquette has stayed busy since her departure, welcoming her first child with Jon Moxley back in June, publishing a cookbook and launching a successful podcast in Oral Sessions. In a new interview with Wrestling Inc. this week she confirmed she’s been under a lengthy No Compete clause with the WWE that is on the verge of ending.

“My non-compete with WWE is nearly up,” Paquette said. “I don’t ever want to separate myself from professional wrestling. I know that’s where my fanbase comes from; I know that’s essentially going to always be my bread and butter — and I love that. I love professional wrestling, so I’m not looking to ‘get away’ from it by any stretch.”

“Looking at AEW, I think there are endless opportunities of other things I could be doing over there, if that was to be something that came up down the line,” she continued, “I’ve honestly not put much thought into it. That’s interesting to be like, ‘Oh, wait! I can do wrestling things again!’”

She explained in a number of interviews in the months following her departure why she requested her release from the WWE after working with the promotion for nearly a decade.

“I don’t know if there was a definitive ‘I’m leaving now’ [moment],” she told the Sports Illustrated Media Podcast in September. “Backstage got canceled, I got COVID, a lot of s— just kind of happened… I’m at home, I get my diagnosis, that same day I found out that Backstage gets canceled. But it was really with Backstage being canceled that I was like, ‘What am I doing? I’m not really doing anything anymore and my skill set of being a host, there’s just nowhere for me to do it anymore. Even with Talking Smack coming back, I had heard the rumblings that Talking Smack was making its way back, I was planning on perhaps doing that. But I was like, ‘You know what? I feel like I’m taking steps backward. I’m sorta spinning my wheels to go back and do a show. To not be doing it with [Daniel Bryan.] To not be doing it with [former WWE producer and VP of Television Production] Mike Mansury, who also is no longer with WWE. But that was sort of the magic of what that show was to me.

“It was all that stuff happening at once and just being like, ‘What am I doing here? I’ve checked off all the things I’ve been able to do.’ Stepping away from commentary ultimately left kind of a bad taste in my mouth,” she continued. “So going to working for FOX was incredible, and I’ll still be doing stuff for FOX as we’re kind of figuring out what that looks like with WWE and FOX. But I’ll still be working with them on that side of things, so that’s cool. Just not really having any platforms with WWE and spinning my wheels, I’m turning 35. It’s kind of s— or get off the boat. It’s time to start making some other moves. Otherwise, I’m just going to stay here forever and not really be proud of my accomplishments anymore.”