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Earlier this week, Mike Johnson sat down with MLP Canadian Women's Champion Priscilla Kelly in advance of her title defense against Nikki Storm on tonight's MLP Northern Rising 2026 PPV on MyAEW.com. Below is the complete transcript for the discussion, which can be heard at www.PWInsiderElite.com.
Mike Johnson: Hey everybody, it's Mike Johnson in the audio section of PWInsiderElite.com. As you're listening to this, all roads from here lead to the former Maple Leaf Gardens in Toronto, as MLP will present the 2026 iteration of Northern Rising, which will air live on pay-per-view via myaew.com. Now that I've said all that, very happy to be sitting down with someone who's in one of the big main events for the show, the brand new—she'll be having her first championship defense—the brand new MLP Canadian Women's Wrestling Champion, Priscilla Kelly, who of course has wrestled all over the world, including NXT among other places, will be defending that belt this Saturday against Nikki Storm, a very formidable talent. Priscilla, first of all, thank you for sitting down and talking to us. Obviously, the title change just aired on MLP TV in the last couple of weeks. You've got to be very happy about that. How is everything in your life and your world?
Priscilla Kelly: Winning that MLP title, man, that set me over the moon. I was so excited to win, and of course Giselle is such an honorable opponent to have defeated for that title, too, so it was a really cool moment for me. I don't know if you saw the backstage interview after I came through the curtain, but all of that emotion was very real. It was so exciting, and like I said, Giselle is such a decorated opponent in my opinion—I think she's incredibly talented—so to be able to have that match that we had and then winning that title, I was really over the moon, really I was.
Mike Johnson: You know, like every other talent, you've had your ups and downs, your big moments, big signings and exits, and things don't work out the way you plan. That's life; nothing works out the way we envision in our head. When you have a moment like this, when you've been out there grinding all over the place, making your post-WWE life happen, and then this company looks upon you and says, "Hey, we trust in you to have this position and to carry a portion of our company," what does that mean to not just your confidence or your ego, but just you as a person, given you've been through all the highs and lows of the career the last couple of years?
Priscilla Kelly: Yeah, that was definitely a big part of it, knowing that MLP saw something in me to be able to have me—I mean, when you're the Women's Champion of a company, you are the face of their company from the women's side. So to be able to have that faith in me and to believe in me the way that they did, it really meant a lot to me. It's such a positive, constructive, and just a good environment to be around. I've genuinely, from the bottom of my heart, had an amazing time in the very short amount of time that I've been with MLP. I've done a few scattered shows over the last year working with them here and there, but to now be a part of their tapings and to be their champion, I couldn't be in a happier position just to be a part of what they have. I just think what Maple Leaf is doing and what they have is really special, and I really believe in the product. They put so much work into their production and their video crew—they're all just so amazing to work with. Not only that, but they get a side of my vision, I would say, for who I am as a wrestler. A lot of people have tried to tell me who I should be, how I should sound, what I should look like over the years, and Maple Leaf sees who Priscilla Kelly is, and they let me just be Priscilla Kelly. They don't try to change anything; they just let me be who I want to be. That's what really means the most to me.
Mike Johnson: A lot of times you'll talk about talents finding themselves or figuring out who they are. Obviously, everyone has this very unique sort of journey in pro wrestling, but how hard was it for you to figure out who you want Priscilla Kelly to be on camera, especially when you go through developmental and they're directing you a certain way, and maybe for television they want to tone different things down? For you, what was the proper path to figuring out who Priscilla Kelly is, and when did you figure out the perfect formula for who you want to portray on screen when you walk out to the ring and you're on camera?
Priscilla Kelly: I'd say I always had a small idea of who I wanted to be over the years, but I've definitely gone through a lot of growth. I started at 16, way back in 2014 or 2015, so obviously you're going to go through a lot of changes and grow a lot, and I definitely did. I feel like I've always had pieces of me throughout the process, but it was redefining and polishing up all these little things. In WWE, being in Toxic Attraction, obviously my look and my character presentation did change quite a bit because we were going in a little bit of a different direction and there was the Mandy influence there. But even that, while that may not have been who Priscilla Kelly always was, there was a lot that I learned from that process and a lot that I grew from that. Now today, I'm sort of this collection of all these little pieces of who I've been throughout my career, and really what it comes down to now, I am the rawest version of Priscilla Kelly, but at the same time, I feel like this is the most me that I have ever felt. When you go through growth as not only a performer, but you also go through growth as a person in the business—because you face challenges, you face a lot of the ups and downs that the business can throw at you—you get to a point where you really figure out not only how you want to be presented on TV, but you also figure out who you are backstage, how to carry yourself backstage, and you slowly learn how to believe in yourself. That's a work in progress, I think, for a lot of wrestlers, fully, truly believing in yourself, but I'm getting to a point now where I'm like, "You know what? I've accepted that I'm never going to make everybody happy, and that's okay, because as long as I'm happy and I'm having fun, I think that's what my goal in wrestling is now. For me to be happy, for me to be having fun, and not to be worrying about who is going to not like this and who's not going to like that. I'm just going to go and do what means something to me, you know?"
Mike Johnson: Well, one match that I think is going to mean a lot to the audience watching this Saturday at Northern Rising is yourself defending the Canadian Women's Wrestling Championship against Nikki Storm, obviously someone you've crossed paths with in the past in NXT and other places. Thoughts and expectations on that match for this Saturday?
Priscilla Kelly: Man, this match is going to be so huge. First of all, I've never wrestled in this building, so from what I've been told, it's huge, and it's a really incredible place. So I'm really excited to do that. I'm excited to be a part of this show—it's just so big to me. It's a great way to—it's not quite the end of the year, but we're going into the end of the year, so it's a huge way to cap off the end of the year, and it's a huge defense against Nikki. I love Nikki Cross. Man, she's really been around me since I was around 18, even if she doesn't even remember it. I met her, I believe it was at the Mae Young Classic that I did, and she was always so nice to me. She was always so helpful, so ready to give advice, and just a true class act with me. So to be able to have my first big title defense against her at such a big event, I'm so excited. I can't believe it's already going to be happening this weekend, though, but yeah, this one's insane for me.
Mike Johnson: Now I know you guys had wrestled in the four-way on MLP Mayhem about a month ago now, but this is different because it's a singles bout. What does it mean to you that this is the women's main event for the show? There will be other talents and other matches on the show, obviously, but there's a couple of big matches on the show in terms of Copeland against Steve Maclin, the unification match with the men's Canadian Championship match, and this is right up there with the triple main event. What does it mean to you that you're in that position for such a big show, not just for Canada, but for this corner of the year?
Priscilla Kelly: Really, it's kind of the same thing I said before, just to feel believed in from a fan perspective and from a company perspective. Because when you go through various wrestling companies and you go through so much BS from the business, you go through a lot of phases where you'll question yourself as a performer, and you'll question, "Am I good enough? Am I enough? Am I doing enough?" Being able to say that I'm in this position, it means so much to me knowing what I have been through mentally in trying to get to a place where I have that confidence in myself and I believe in myself. So to have the fans believe in me the way that they do and to have MLP put me in this position, it really means a lot. It's a huge position to be in, and I don't really have any other words for it other than I'm just so excited. I'm plain out excited.
Mike Johnson: So over the weekend MLP invaded the London Comic Con. I've got to ask you: what was it like wrestling in front of a comic book convention audience, and how different was it from your traditional pro wrestling events?
Priscilla Kelly: Conventions are always fun because there's always really random things that can happen, like I happened to get photos and meet all of the original Texas Chainsaw Massacre cast from the original movie. There's things like that that can happen at those kind of events, which was super cool because it's one of my favorite movie franchises. Besides that, it's also an opportunity to just have some fun and interact with the crowd a lot more because these might not be wrestling fans. They might be fans of movies or shows or video games, and maybe some wrestling fans as well—they're all kind of just mixed in together. So you could be wrestling in front of people that have never seen wrestling in person before. It's an exciting kind of thing to get to play around with that and to introduce people to it.
Mike Johnson: The fun part of being a pro wrestler when you're not signed to a national contract is you get to travel all over the world and do all these random things. I know in the last couple of months you've been to Belgium, you've been to Australia. I wanted to ask you, have you found that one place that you really love to travel to and perform at internationally, whether it's the travel or the freedom or the audience? What's been the most fun international travel outside of Canada—because obviously MLP you go to on a regular basis, but you've been to a couple of interesting places in the last year. What really stood out to you in terms of those experiences?
Priscilla Kelly: Man, it's hard because I loved Australia. I really loved Australia. My only complaint was that I had a lot of travel issues and I flew in super exhausted, and because I was so exhausted, I started to get a little bit sick on that trip, so I didn't have a lot of time to really see the sights and do stuff in Australia, but I will say I did love it there. We did get to go see some koalas and I did get to eat some good food. It's hard because they all have their perks, you know? Like Belgium, I didn't have a lot of time in Belgium, but I'm not exaggerating when I say the best beer I've ever had in my life. So it's very stereotypical, but the Belgian beer was worth the hype. Honestly, though, I really think Japan is my favorite. I'm such a sushi girl, and I don't mean just like some salmon maki roll, like no, I like uni and A5 Wagyu. That's the kind of food that I love, so Japan just has so much to see, so much to do—there's culture, there's technology, there's so much video game culture too, which I'm huge into, so you can't beat Japan, really you can't.
Mike Johnson: Dying to go one day, just on a personal level, not even for pro wrestling. You know, I want to ask you this: you, like a lot of other talents, have been through signing with companies and then having to go out there and hit the ground running again. What is your advice for people who inevitably will end up in that similar position where they think, "Well, hopefully I'll be here for the rest of my life," but it doesn't always work out that way for everybody? What's your advice to someone when it comes time to hit the independents and start to be your own boss again?
Priscilla Kelly: Oh man, there's a lot of things you could say there. Wrestling—I think a lot of people, some people learn this early, some people learn this late in their careers, but wrestling is so much of a rollercoaster. People can throw that around a lot as an analogy, but no, wrestling really is. You're going to be at the highest of highs in your career, and then the very next week you could be hitting rock bottom and be at the lowest of lows. Then you'll have a week where you're doing okay, then you might have a week where you're questioning, "Why the hell am I doing this?" But then you'll have a week where you feel like you're on top of the world, you're traveling to these amazing countries, you're meeting these crazy, incredible people, and you're having these intense matches and the crowd's going crazy. Those are the moments that make all the other rollercoaster ups and downs worth it. So the biggest thing is being patient and trusting, as long as you're putting in the work and as long as you're enjoying what you're doing and it's showing that you are happy—you're not always going to be happy, but you have to love wrestling to do it, especially on the independents, because the independents is a different grind than TV. TV is a grind of its own kind, right, but the independents is a completely different kind of grind, and I believe that you genuinely do have to love this to be in it. Whether the money's there or not, you have to love it. So I think as long as you're putting in the work, as long as you still have the love and the passion for it, the biggest thing is being patient, trusting the process, trusting whatever season that you're in in your career, because there's going to be the highs and there's going to be the lows. There's a lot of people that hit those lows and that can be breaking points for people, and I've been in many situations where that's almost been the case for me. But patience and being lucky to have someone like Zachary in my life and my brothers who have pulled me up out of those trenches at times is what's kept me here for this long. You see like, I've been through these lows, but now I'm at a point where I'm defending this huge championship this weekend in front of this huge crowd, and those are those highs that I'm talking about. So really just being patient, sticking with it, and trusting the process, as generic as that sounds.
Mike Johnson: You mentioned Zach, you're obviously talking about your fiancé Zachary Wentz, who's with AEW now. You've wrestled him a couple of times for Sami Callihan's Pro Wrestling Revolver. What's it like calling spots with your husband, especially when you may not agree on the creative plans for the show?
Priscilla Kelly: We had a lot of fun. So the first match that I had with him, he kicked me right in my knee and it dislocated my knee, and I had to pop it back in. It was horrible. It was my first match back on the indies after getting released, and he just kicked me right where my knee is and my knee popped out. It was okay, but I had to pop it back in, and he was being stubborn and didn't want to let me continue the match. But the second time around, we had a great match, and it was really fun. I got to definitely beat him up a little bit, and we had a little bit of fun with it too. His mom and his sister actually showed up to watch that match too, so it was very interesting getting to do a hip attack / stink face to their son in front of them! But yeah, it was a lot of fun. We honestly didn't have any headbutting putting that match together or anything, we just had fun with it, and I would like to do it again actually.
Mike Johnson: Better the stink face in the ring than during the wedding reception, so good timing there. I want to talk a little bit more about Northern Rising. It's going to be at the former Maple Leaf Gardens, which for many years was the center of Toronto wrestling. When you get to walk into a building with that sort of history, I know you were talking about you've never been there before but you're excited about it, when you go to a historic building and you get to wrestle there, for you as a wrestler—and obviously someone who watches a lot of tapes and studies things—is there a checklist of things you want to do when you get to these unique buildings that have all the history or have the reputation for being places with great atmosphere or having these diehard fans? When you get to go to a place like this for the first time, what's the process before you settle in to prepare for your match?
Priscilla Kelly: The first thing I do when I go to really historic buildings is I look up if they're haunted! Or I look up any crazy stories of things that have happened there, because I did an NXT show—it was one of our big shows, we did one that was in the same building that was either connected to or was the same building that the Michael Jackson Pepsi commercial incident happened in! Yeah, sometimes I end up at buildings and I look up what's the history, is it haunted, things like that, and then I find out really interesting facts about the building like that. If it's definitely something historical, I always look up what's happened here, is it haunted, did people die, or did some crazy event happen here, because I'm super interested in history stuff like that. But also, yeah, just really taking in the size and the calm before the storm. A lot of fans don't get to experience these big buildings before everybody pours in and it's loud and all that stuff, like when it's just dead empty and quiet before everything starts, and you get to have that moment where you kind of sit and take everything in. A lot of the Stand & Delivers I've done, I've done that, I've kind of just sat there and looked around and been like, "Holy shit!" I do YouTube vlogs, so I'm most likely going to be vlogging for the show, so I'll try to get some good clips of everything before everybody piles in the building too, so everybody can check it out.
Mike Johnson: So I'm from New York City, so when I go upstate I have to pass Sleepy Hollow, so I've been to the Headless Horseman and all that stuff, and there's lots of hauntings and things like that there. I've had the ability, thanks in part to pro wrestling, to travel around the country, and I'll always see the weird roadside attractions or what's the legend of the cryptid creature in different places, Champ in Lake Champlain up in Vermont and New York, things like that. So I'm curious, is there a favorite sort of haunted residence or place of interest that you've been able to hit through the course of traveling for pro wrestling or just in general? What are the ones that stand out to you that you've enjoyed checking out and researching the most?
Priscilla Kelly: Ooh, that's hard. Hotel Cecil in LA is a really interesting one because there's just so much history to that and so many stories about that place. I've never been in it, but supposedly a few years ago you could stay there. That one was pretty insane just because of the amount of stuff that's gone on in that hotel. But I've definitely visited a lot of different places. I'm actually randomly wearing my Zak Bagans' Haunted Museum shirt right now! The Haunted Museum in Vegas was crazy. I made Zach do that with me, and I don't think he really wanted to, and we thought it was kind of going to be set up more like a Ripley's Believe It or Not with artifacts and things you could read, and then we get in there, and the first room was them playing the real recordings of the exorcism! So I was like—Zach just gives me this look like, "What the hell have you gotten me into?" Then we ended up doing—I mean, it was a two and a half hour tour, we were in there for a long, long time, so that was definitely one of the craziest. The stuff Zak Bagans has in that place is wild. If you've never been there and you're into that kind of thing, go check it out, but I would bring some kind of spiritual protection, probably.
Mike Johnson: Pack some holy water on the way. The first time I went to Los Angeles, I wanted to go to the Hollywood Roosevelt Hotel, which is right there on Hollywood Boulevard, because allegedly Montgomery Clift, the actor who's been in a million things—From Here to Eternity, big Hollywood star—allegedly he haunts room 928. He lived there for months when he was filming a movie and was playing a character that played the bugle, so he had to learn to play the bugle, so they swear that at times you'll hear someone playing a bugle even when there's nobody staying in the room. Stories like that are always fascinating.
Priscilla Kelly: Yeah, I've heard about that one. There's a lot I haven't been able to check out because a lot of times with wrestling you are so in and out of places, you don't have a lot of time to really check out things. The times that I've been able to check out stuff, I've been lucky with LA, because back in the day I would go do some shows, I'd stay with a friend, and then I'd have some extra time to check out stuff. But lately I've been so in and out of places, so not a lot of time to explore.
Mike Johnson: Well, I don't know how much time you're going to have to explore Toronto, but we're going to get to see you perform this Saturday at Northern Rising. I really thank you for sitting down and talking to us. Why should fans make sure that even in this crazy, over-the-top world of all this wrestling thrown at us every week, they should sit down and order Northern Rising this Saturday, check out you versus Nikki Storm, and everything else that Scott D'Amore and his merry band of men and women have to offer the wrestling world?
Priscilla Kelly: Oh man. First of all, it's a huge show. The Copeland versus Maclin match also, wow, that's going to be such a fun one to not only watch, but to be backstage and kind of be in the corner watching that. So it's going to be a huge show. Obviously, there's so much wrestling right now, but in a company like MLP where I've just been having so much fun, I've got to bring so much intensity for this first title defense. With it being mine and Nikki's first time having a singles match, it's going to be a huge match, it's going to be a banger, it's going to be intense, it's going to be emotional, it's going to be me really pouring everything I have into it, because really, aside from my match with Giselle, this is the other most important match of my year in 2026. So I definitely would come check it out, it's huge for me, and I'm over the moon excited for it, so excited for this one. It's a great thing to be a part of. Scott, I just think Scott believes in the women so much more, and he has such a vision for what women are capable of, and it really shows with the matches and the work, so it's going to be great, guys, it's going to be great.
Mike Johnson: Before we go, I want to let everybody know, obviously MLP airs every Wednesday at midnight for Mayhem. This week will be the season finale, and we'll find out when the new season kicks off on TSN 2, but MLP will air on myaew.com this Saturday evening for Northern Rising featuring a bevy of great matches, including the MLP Canadian Women's Wrestling Champion Priscilla Kelly. Priscilla, before we go, you mentioned a YouTube vlog, I want to give you a chance to tell everybody else where they can track you down on social media, track down your YouTube vlog, and everything else you've got going on beyond the schedule for Maple Leaf Wrestling.
Priscilla Kelly: Oh yeah! So I am finally under the name HellsFavoritePK on all platforms—so that's YouTube, TikTok (I don't use TikTok that much, but TikTok), Instagram, X, all of that stuff. I do post my wrestling vlogs on YouTube, and they're very candid, they're very genuinely behind the scenes, and they show a lot of the grit, the exhaustion, the bad flights, all the in-betweens and ups and downs. So you can go check that out, I try to get a good vlog posted as much as possible.
Mike Johnson: All right, we'll have a link to all those social media platforms right under this interview. We thank Priscilla for her time. Ma'am, really appreciate you sitting down, wish you and the family nothing but the best professionally and personally. Give our best to Zach, he's awesome. We're looking forward to MLP Northern Rising this Saturday, and we look forward to seeing what happens when you and Nikki Cross lock up and clash for the Canadian Women's Wrestling Championship. We want to thank everybody for listening, we thank you for your support of PWInsiderElite.com. We'll have coverage of Northern Rising this weekend, but most importantly, go order it right now on myaew.com. Until next time, I'm Mike Johnson. Priscilla, thank you so much for the time.
Priscilla Kelly: Thank you.
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