Britt Baker discusses the growth of AEW.
The former women’s champion spoke with Jim Varsallone of the Miami Herald about all the exciting things AEW has on the horizon, including this summer’s All In London event from Wembley Stadium. Varsallone asks Baker how she navigates the drama that occurs backstage in the company like the CM Punk brawl with the Elite or her own issues with Thunder Rosa. Baker responded with the following:
It’s really, for me, as being the first female signed, and one of the day ones, the OGs, every big announcement that AEW, it really shakes me to my core in the best way possible that I’m a part of this, I’m the foundation of this wrestling company that, when we first signed our contracts, we didn’t know really what this was gonna grow into. We’d hoped. We were having the most optimistic thoughts as possible, but nothing was really promised. We really all took a leap of faith because up until then, the only major wrestling company was WWE, and to kind of close the door on that for now and say, hey, no, I really want to go all in on All Elite Wrestling, for a lot of people, you really were. You were like, okay, gonna cross my fingers and hope for the best. Just to see all of this play out in the absolute best way possible, it’s so reassuring. It’s very surreal. I wrestled on the first All In in front of 10,000 people. That was the big show I’ve ever been a part of, which was essentially the precursor to All Elite Wrestling.
Baker adds that internal competition is a good thing because it pushes everyone to be better, but that at the end of the day everyone on the roster has a similar goal, help AEW grow.
Myself, Kenny, the Young Bucks, MJF, Jungle Boy, the whole day group of all of us, just to see the growth to now we’re gonna be wrestling in Wembley Stadium. I think there’s 70,000 tickets sold. That’s huge, it’s massive. It almost seems like that could have never been possible at one point, and it is. You really have to think, the growth, that’s what I think can really rally everyone together, that, ‘Guys, we worked so hard together to get from one point to where we are now. Let’s keep growing, but we can’t do that if we’re all on different pages. Everyone needs to be working together.’ That’s with every company. You need to have people on the same page. Internal competition is good. It creates pressure, and pressure makes diamonds. I think competition within a company is great, but at the same, everybody needs to be fighting for all the same goals.
Baker will be in action on tomorrow’s AEW Dynamite. You can check out the latest card for the show here.
(H/T and transcribed by Fightful)