Mike and Maria Kanellis: Everything You Need to Know About New WWE Power Couple

Mike and Maria Kanellis brought their impassioned and irksome love life to a new stage when they made a surprise appearance at WWE Money in the Bank 2017.

The real-life couple has been a team for Impact Wrestling, Ring of Honor, New Japan Pro Wrestling and elsewhere. They have gloated and complained, cheated and thrived in every one of those places. It's now time for them to try to transfer their shtick to the SmackDown brand.

Maria was surely more familiar to many of the fans who watched Sunday's pay-per-view unfold. She was a former WWE talent during the Divas era, a manager for the likes of Dolph Ziggler and Santino Marella and a woman who played many roles on Raw.

Mike (formerly Mike Bennett) is new to WWE. The bombastic 32-year-old has been honing his craft in rings everywhere from Framingham, Massachusetts, to Tokyo.

Together, The First Lady and The Miracle showed up at Money in the Bank to inform the crowd they intended to show SmackDown the power of love.

Before the exhibitionist braggarts began that quest, read on to get to know both Mike and Maria.

Basic Info

Maria

• 5'7"
• Hometown: Ottawa, Illinois
• Championships won: TNA Knockouts Championship
• Finisher: Beautiful Bulldog

Mike

• 6'1", 225 lbs
• Hometown: Carver, Massachusetts
• Championships won: IWGP Tag Team Championship, TNA X Division Championship, ROH World Tag Team Championship
• Finisher: Divine Intervention, Piledriver

Maria

Maria signed with WWE in 2004 after competing in that year's Raw Diva Search. She did a bit of everything for the company in the years to follow.

She was an interviewer, a valet, a wrestler, a company spokesperson.

Even when Maria was in the hunt for the Divas Championship, her personality and presence were always more important than her athletic ability. She's a limited worker, but a skilled heat-generator. Maria was at times a weasel working for a heel or the villain fans enjoyed seeing take a beating.

Trish Stratus knocked Maria around in a backstage beatdown. Steve Austin once sprayed her with a fire hose filled with beer. Kurt Angle laid her out with an Angle Slam.

She played both a manager and an on-screen lover for Ziggler and Marella during a WWE run that ended in 2010.

Maria's resume has always been a varied one. In addition to being a Superstar, she is a singer and has appeared on a number of TV shows. She's been on Family Feud, Attack of the Show and most famously Celebrity Apprentice.

Donald Trump eventually fired her for "locker room talk," as she recounted for Entertainment Tonight.

After leaving WWE, her wrestling career became entwined with her then-boyfriend and now-husband Mike's. They stood alongside each other starting with their ROH tenure that began in 2011.

Mike

His early career saw him work the independent scene in New England. Mike showed off his cocky ways and technical prowess in civic centers and town halls in the area as his name slowly began to grow.

He had some brief flirtations with WWE along the way. In 2007, he appeared in two matches on WWE Heat against Cryme Tyme, per CageMatch.net. Six years later, he drew interest from WWE, but contract negotiations stalled, as James Caldwell reported for PWTorch.

The bulk of The Prodigy's career has been spent in ROH where he often sported a sly, narcissist's smile and wiped out foes with a piledriver.

He battled the likes of Kevin Steen (now Kevin Owens), NXT's Tommaso Ciampa and Hiroshi Tanahashi. Mike formed an alliance dubbed "The Kingdom" in 2014 with Matt Hardy and Matt Taven at his side.

Some of his best work has come in tag team matches, be it for ROH or NJPW. He has no truly great singles bouts on his resume just yet.

He will soon get a chance to change that, though, after joining a SmackDown roster that boasts AJ Styles, Sami Zayn and Shinsuke Nakamura.

The Power Couple 

One cannot write the story of either Mike or Maria without the other. They have been partners in crime for years, beginning with their alliance at ROH and up until recently as part of Impact Wrestling.

Maria stood in Mike's corner as he pursued then-ROH world champ Jay Briscoe. She interfered in countless matches for him. She helped guide Mike and The Young Bucks to a deep run in Chikara's King of Trios tournament in 2012. And she teamed up with Mike in Japan.

The two arrived as a unit to Impact Wrestling last year, when Maria often talked up her husband as if she were part carnival barker, part preacher.

Their time there was short but fruitful in terms of gold. Maria held the Impact Wrestling Knockout Championship. Mike captured the X Division title and competed for the company's top heavyweight championship, as well.

Together, they were lovebirds and weasels. They were crafty cowards, calling back to classic wrestling heels. Maria was a revelation in her role.

ProWrestling.net's Jason Powell wrote of her: "Maria was arguably the best talker in the company last year."

The couple parted ways with Impact Wrestling in the spring and rumors of them signing with WWE swirled around the internet. They proved true on Sunday night as Mike and Maria showed up and got back to their smarmy, kissy-kissy ways.

Their act now has a new home, and it's one they have been perfecting for over half a decade.