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Major League Wrestling is a sports media holding company with a focus on professional wrestling events and programming, digital content and ancillary entertainment. Arguably the fastest growing wrestling league today, MLW’s weekly TV series Major League Wrestling: FUSION airs Friday nights on beIN SPORTS in the United States, Canada and Puerto Rico; in other countries FUSION can be streamed on Saturday nights via MLW's YouTube channel.
MLW features a roster full of high-profile fighters and on-air talent from around the world including Tony Schiavone, The Hart Foundation, “Filthy” Tom Lawlor, Low Ki, LA Park, Pentagon Jr., Rey Fenix, Tommy Dreamer, Salina De La Renta, Rush, Joey Ryan, Kotto Brazil, Shane “Swerve” Strickland, Barrington Hughes, Simon Gotch, Konnan, and Colonel Robert Parker. It is also the parent company of the MLW Radio Network, which is the leading provider of professional wrestling podcasts.
I had the pleasure of speaking with the aforementioned Salina De La Renta, one of MLW's top stars, and highlights from our phone chat are below. Ms. De La Renta will be part of MLW's February 2nd show at the 2300 Arena in Philadelphia, and also looks to be part of other MLW events in Chicago (March 3rd) and New York (April 4th and 5th). De La Renta can be followed on Instagram, Facebook and Twitter via @SalinaDeLaRenta.
On joining up with MLW:
"When I starting training I met Mister Saint Laurent, who is the [Executive] Vice President of the company when my career started taking off. He told me about MLW. He was like, 'I think you'll be great for a female character that we have. It's just an idea for now but I think we should sit down and talk and see where you stand.' I had a phone call meeting with [CEO] Court [Bauer], and he had seen all my work by the time we had sat down together. I was pretty much onboard after that. I just basically had to finish the conversation so he would know that I had a good work ethic.''
On her first wrestling memory:
"One time that I was getting out of my room, and I wasn't really allowed to watch wrestling when I was little, because my mom didn't want me to be aggressive... But my stepdad was watching wrestling and I saw The Boogeyman. He had worms in his mouth and I was fascinated because I had never seen anybody do that. I was like, 'What a weirdo. That's awesome.' I had that in the back of my mind and that's what I thought wrestling was the majority of my life until I turned 19.
I was in school and they told me that I had to study reality TV and I came across Total Divas. I [then] heard of wrestling the first time without it being The Boogeyman, so I was really curious about it. I was like, 'Wow, they're hot women and they do a sport, I like that. Let me see what that is." So I started looking into it and I was fascinated by wrestling. The week after that I started training and now I'm here."
On loving her character and MLW being a great company to work for:
"Actually I love Salina. I think I spend 90 percent of my time thinking about how Salina would act... I'm super-happy with the way Salina is presented and I don't think any other company would give me the opportunity to do as much as Major League Wrestling has done for me."
On the future of MLW:
"I know that shows are booked out a year ahead... I actually don't know all the details because Court is very private. So I do know that there's a lot of good stuff coming and we're probably going to branch out to maybe outside the United States."
