CJ Perry discusses the storyline involving herself, Liv Morgan, Bobby Lashley, and Rusev (Miro).
The four stars were involved in a short storyline in 2019-2020. The storyline, which was not recieved well by many fans, featured Rusev and Liv Morgan teaming together to take on Lashley and Perry (Lana) in a number of mixed tag team bouts.
In a new interview with Fightful, Perry provided an interesting look at the situation, noting that if one of bosses thinks that a certain storyline is good business, then at that point, she's just a hired talent.
"If it’s Tony Khan or if it’s Vince, at the end of the day, they’re the directors and the producers and the CEOs of this story. It’s at least $100,000 per minute that they’re on television, maybe more now at this point. But I remember in 2020 hearing, I believe from TJ and Nattie, that Vince said that’s it’s $100,000 a minute to be on USA. So I think, again, this is where savage business comes into it. Are you worth that $100,000 a minute? This is a business at the end of the day. So Vince thought that was good business. It would be naive of any of us to think he doesn’t know what he’s doing. Yes, we’re younger and we have a youthful opinion to bring to the table, but he has years of experience. So, look, it got me the biggest contract I ever got in my life and I’m very thankful for that. I think that, again, what the Bobby Lashley story taught me is scandal sells. So it doesn’t matter, it still sells. People might hate it, we still made WWE a lot of money. Like our YouTube videos made them a lot of money. This is a business at the end of the day. If it doesn’t translate into sales, if it doesn’t translate into subscriptions, ticket sales, all of that, viewership, then who cares? I’m just hired talent. We’re storytellers. We all know there’s been a ton
of affairs and love triangles."
Fightful then proceeded to read off some of the stats for various YouTube videos involving the storyline between Perry, Lashley, Rusev, and Morgan. Perry responded by noting that she thinks relationship stories in wrestling are good for business.
"It’s crazy. It’s crazy. Relationship stories really sell. I know that’s not necessarily AEW’s story style over there, and I think that’s great how it differs. But everyone can relate to that. Most people have all been in love at some point, heart ache, maybe broken up with, backstabbed. So I think that’s all very relatable. I think it’s also really relatable, more gender fluidity right now in this time. Especially with Millenials and Gen-Z specifically. So I think I really resonated with that story. When they pitched it to me, I said, ‘Oh, this totally makes sense.’ I resonated with it. So I found it a little offensive that everyone found it so offensive."
Perry went on to say that she wishes WWE would have followed up more on the story.
"Totally. I wish they would have followed up more on it, but again, I’m not the show runner and that’s not my [job]. I would love to be their show runner in the future one day. Or maybe I’ll be Larry, the digital producer [in] AEW. I want to produce and I love that stuff. Again, I take it as I’m hired."
Elsewhere in the interview, Perry discussed her current run in AEW. Fans can learn more by clicking here.
Fans can check out CJ Perry's BrandArmy page by clicking here. A subscription grants you access to exclusive videos and photos, as well as behind the scenes content from her time on the road.
Furthermore, fans can check out CJ Perry's full interview with Fightful in the video linked above.
