Salina De La Renta Says MLW Still Paid Her During Pandemic, Discusses Transition To Executive Producer

Salina de la Renta has become one of the most important figures in MLW, not only on-camera, but behind the scenes as well. 

On television, Salina has been a featured manager in her feud against Konnan as the two battle for supremacy in the lucha libre market. Backstage, she helps lucha libre talent communicate with MLW officials and has become an executive producer for the shows. 

Speaking to Vickie Guerrero on Vickie’s Excuse Me podcast, Salina discussed her start with MLW and how she took more responsibility behind the scenes. 

“Coming into MLW, specifically, I had just broke my leg five different times because I was wrestling. I showed up with a cane and was like, ‘Oh my God, what are they going to do with me?’ Two weeks before the show, producer Alex Greenfield reached out to me and was like, ‘Any chance you have a business suit?’ ‘No, but I can make it work,'” she said. 

Salina noted she got a credit card and spent $800 on a suit as a way to dress for the job she wanted, not the job she had. 

She continued by saying, “Behind the scenes, people would start coming up to me and asking, ‘Do you know when I’m up?’ I was the new girl and I didn’t want to be unhelpful so I was like, ‘I don’t know, but I’ll figure it out.’ I would reach out to Court and people behind the scenes and get everything going. Penta [El Zero M] and Fenix didn’t speak any English and they would go through me to translate everything. Now, all the luchadors that didn’t want to speak English, they would come to me and people started assuming I was in charge. With time, Court was like, ‘I see you do a lot, do you want to take more work and get paid for it?’ ‘Yes, I would love that.'”

In 2019, MLW named Salina as an executive producer. 

Speaking about the transition into the role, she said, “I had it rough from the transition to talent to executive producer. That was really rough. I would be like, ‘I need you to do this’ and they’d be like, ‘Oh, so you’re my boss now?’ and I’d have to be like, ‘Actually, yeah.'”

Salina said she wasn’t trying to be mean to any talent but just wanted to be treated with some respect. She also noted that she will executive produce MLW on January 6, which is MLW Kings of Colosseum. 

When discussing the break due to COVID she said MLW “was really good to me and I was still getting paid,” which made things easier for her to pursue other ventures. 

On Wednesday’s episode of MLW Fusion, Salina summoned Mil Muertes, who is coming soon to MLW. 

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