AEW superstar Britt Baker recently spoke with Sports Illustrated to hype up this Wednesday’s St. Patrick’s Day special edition of Dynamite on TNT, where the Dentist takes on former NWA women’s champion Thunder Rosa in the program’s main event bout. Highlights from the interview can be found below.
Her journey from the independents to AEW:
I went from wrestling on the independents in front of 200 people to wrestling on Dynamite in front of 10,000 people, and with a million more watching. That’s definitely baptism by fire, but that is one of the things that makes AEW so great. We don’t have a performance center to train; we’re all learning as we go. That makes the highs higher and the lows lower. And as far as learning as we go on TV, I love it. It’s such a challenge and such a rush. You know you have to go out there and kill it, or you won’t get that opportunity again.
Whether she thought she’d get this popular as a heel:
I didn’t. I’d never been a heel in my wrestling career—I was always, always a babyface. Kenny Omega had the idea to turn me heel. I was up for it, but deep down, I was concerned. Now I’m learning that I am a much better heel. I get to say the things that everybody else is thinking. That makes being a heel so much fun. It’s really a matter of saying and doing the things that, if I were watching, would make me furious and drive me crazy. The facials, the verbiage, whatever it takes to piss people off, I’ll do it.
On her match with Thunder Rosa main-eventing this week’s AEW Dynamite:
We’re writing the history books instead of reading them. There is only one chance at having the first-ever women’s main event, and I get to be part of it. This is a match you’re going to remember for a long time.
Tells fans not to miss this Wednesday’s episode:
You can say it’s because of Thunder Rosa; you can say it’s because of me, but we are going to add a lot of respect to the women’s division this Wednesday on Dynamite. We’re going to go all out. We both have a different vision of who is pioneering this women’s division. Someone has to win; someone has to lose, but it’s going to be a fight. I promise this is going to be a can’t-miss main event match that people will be talking about for years.