Lana on Her Signing a WWE Legends Deal, Being in Attendance at Survivor Series WarGames 2025 & TKO Having Strict Rules for Tickets to WWE Events, Her Mental Health Struggles After WWE Release in 2021, & Rusev’s AEW Departure

A recent episode of the Insight with Chris Van Vliet podcast featured Lana, former CJ Perry in AEW, as the guest. One of the topics discussed included Lana’s thoughts about her recently signing a Legends deal with WWE and the reactions from others over the announcement.

“I’m still processing it. It’s funny, because I would say it’s been kind of controversial. One of the biggest things that I had on my podcast last week was announcing that I’m a WWE legend, and you thought I stole their Christmas presents or something, people were so mad. People were like, it’s a stretch, and they’re fighting, and then other fans are coming in and defending me. So I just want to acknowledge I understand, I was that shocked too. I absolutely understand that there’s a huge difference between the character Lana and Randy Savage on the legend scale. I get it, but this is what WWE calls their contracts, being a full WWE superstar. My agent called me. I was crying. I was shocked. Yeah, they gave Miro a contract, and they gave me the WWE legend contract at the same time.”

Lana also gave her thoughts about her making a potential return to WWE in the future.

“Of course, you know, I would love to. And I just think it’s all about timing and story. But I’m always ready. I’m always ready.”

Lana also gave her thoughts about how she had bought tickets and flew to San Diego to be in attendance at this past weekend’s WWE Survivor Series WarGames 2025 event. Lana also gave her thoughts about TKO having strict rules and regulations for tickets for WWE events.

“It’s a little weird situation. I think that’s all TKO. You know, when TKO came on, a lot of these changes, like, you have to buy tickets. Everyone has to buy tickets. Yeah, like everyone. Liv had to get all the tickets for her whole family and everything. My husband had to buy — it was like, to bring his whole family in at WrestleMania when he debuted and me, it was $5,000, like, had to buy for the suite.

And it’s all TKO. This isn’t [Triple H], this isn’t Bruce [Prichard], this isn’t — I mean, John Cohn, you’re the best, I love you so much. And so, like, John Cohn is always trying to give us a deal, you know? He’s talent relations, he was a ref for a long time, he’s literally the best. So there’s all these really strict rules and regulations.

I don’t have a problem paying for tickets, because I believe in these people. I believe in Liv Morgan. Of course I’m going to buy a ticket for her return,” Lana said. “I love her. I love wrestling in general. Of course we’re going to go see Miro, you know? He’s had to buy tickets numerous amounts of time. Every time I’ve gone to see Rusev, he’s bought the ticket. So those are the new TKO [rules].”

Lana also gave her thoughts about her release from WWE in 2021 and how she was in shock when it happened.

“I was shocked. I was on television and in big, big storylines the whole time. Had a great relationship with Bruce and Vince, everyone. I was devastated. But now looking back, I’m thankful, because that’s life, and sometimes our hardest moments is our moments that teach us. Now looking back, I realize, not in a mean way, but nothing’s guaranteed in life. We can’t compare ourselves to other people, because we all have a different journey. And also, we don’t live forever, so everything has to come to an end, so let’s focus on all the great things I was able to have, versus it may be finishing too soon.”

Lana also gave her thoughts about her mental health struggles she dealt with following her release from WWE.

“I was really unhappy for a long time, and I think I first got triggered when I got released in 2021 from WWE. It was like my whole life. It was my dream, and I loved it. All my friends are there. You spend 300 days of the year with these women and men, and then you can’t even come backstage again. I struggle with being very ADHD and severely anxious, and it just triggered me into this manic time of my life that I didn’t understand that was an issue for me. So, actually it was Kendall Jenner on Jay Shetty’s purpose podcast that she was talking about anxiety in 2021 and I was like, wow, that’s me. I didn’t realize how much my relationships were suffering from anxiety, and my marriage was suffering from me being severely ADHD and severely anxious. I think divorce rate is 50% more in ADHD people, depression and anxiety is 50% more in ADHD people, and suicide is 50% more in ADHD people, because nothing’s good enough and you get bored and you want to move on. And so WWE was the perfect storm for me, because I was go, go, go, new city. Stimulation, stimulation, dopamine hit when you go and perform. Then when I didn’t have all that and I had to make myself happy, I was turning to all the wrong things. I was even turning to Miro too much to make me happy, and also he was turning to me to make him happy. In reality, the only person that can make us happy is ourselves, and I had to do some severe changes. In 2023 I got MRSA, remember, with my finger. It was so bad. I think a lot of it was because I was so stressed and so anxious, and it shows you that your body, stress can kill us. And so we really have to take care of our mental health and our emotional health first, because that will affect our physical health.”

Lana also gave her thoughts about her husband Rusev’s departure from AEW earlier this year and claimed that Rusev wanted to wrestle every week in AEW. Lana also gave her thoughts about how Rusev loves the style of storytelling that WWE does.

“Both him and I love telling stories, and WWE is a storytelling factory. And he is incredible at what he does. He’s the ‘Super Athlete.’ He loves playing a villain. He loves, absolutely loves WWE-style storytelling. And so I think it was — and he wanted to wrestle every week on TV. That was a big thing for him. He loves wrestling. It wasn’t about a check for him. So it was like, yeah, maybe he made more money at AEW or something, but he wanted — it was more important for him to get out there and be wrestling, it was really hard for him to not be working.”

Transcript h/t: FW4Online.com 1, 2, & 3, Fightful.com 1, 2, & 3