Mariah May was the latest guest on the AEW Unrestricted podcast, where the former STARDOM Champion discussed how she ended up in Tony Khan’s promotion and how they managed to keep her signing a secret. Highlights from the interview can be found below.
Reveals how her deal with AEW came together:
I was in STARDOM, I had just done the big pay-per-view, All Star Grand Queendom and I did commentary on it, which actually got me a big buzz, doing commentary. I had been wrestling there for maybe four or five months, and then AEW reached out and Tony reached out. They enjoyed what I was doing and they wanted me to come to AEW, which I was very surprised. I didn’t think I was ready to go to America, to be on TV, I just didn’t know where it came from. I really wanted to go, but for me, going to STARDOM and Japan, that was something I wanted when I started training and I felt like I was just scratching the surface of what I could do and how I could grow as a performer, especially in ring. I said, ‘I really want to come, I can’t believe you guys want me, but I do want to finish off things I want to do in Japan.’ So, I did the 5-Star Grand Prix. That was such an amazing experience and I learned so much and I improved so much, so now when I come to AEW, I have a lot more to offer than I did in May. That was our original conversation and we talked about idea and I was really excited. I was in Japan, doing what I was doing, but AEW…it was a lot happening in my mind of, I’m really excited about this next step, but I wanted to finish off this chapter I had in STARDOM. That was our first chat.
How she and AEW were able to keep her signing a secret:
I didn’t tell anybody. I guarded that secret with my life. I saw it leak. I actually woke up in the middle of the night in Japan. At the time it leaked, it was like 5 AM. I remember waking up, picking up my phone, and I never had that many notifications in my life. Some of the girls asked. ‘Mariah. Maybe AEW?’ ‘Ah, no.’ [Laughs]. Obviously, STARDOM is run by Rossy [Rossy Ogawa], who I have a very good relationship with. I felt bad not telling him, but somebody, I’m not going to name names, but somebody in the staff does leak stuff about the westerners in particular about where they’re going to go, what they’re going to do. I would have a direct conversation with somebody and they would put it on the dirtsheets. I shutdown my merch store, and the exact conversation I had about it ended up on the dirtsheets. I really wanted to be very honest with Rossy because I have a lot of respect for him, but I couldn’t tell him until literally the day I was going to debut. I sent him a message and thanked him and let him know I was going to AEW. He would instantly be like, ‘Mariah can’t come back next year, she’s going to AEW,’ and then it would all leak so I had to really keep it a secret. I had to keep it to myself and then towards then end, I let some of the girls know.
(H/T and transcribed by Fightful)
