AEW star and former NWA women’s champion Serena Deeb recently joined the Tuesday Wrestling Tuesday program to discuss the growth of the AEW women’s division, and how President Tony Khan embraced wanting to do more layered storytelling than the previous “one-off” feuds. Highlights from the interview can be found below.
How the AEW women’s division used to be just one-off matches:
“It was just one-off matches. And the fact that you know, Tony embraced wanting to do more and wanted to put some, some deep storytelling in there is really cool. Hopefully, you know, that continues for other people as well. I think, you know, just from an emotional investment standpoint, the fans, one-off matches are great. Especially if they’re dream matches, right? Like Daniel Bryan versus Kenny Omega. Like that’s a dream match, people want to see that and even one time, these people are going to love it.
Says the division has grown and hopes to focus on longer feuds:
“But I think, you know, historically speaking in wrestling, if you look back on the Attitude Era, for example, there were stories and feuds that went on for a year. And people stayed emotionally invested as long as there was something compelling to pay attention to. So I think it’s a great sign. I’ve seen it also across other stories in the women’s division and as of late and it’s great. I think wrestling fans, a lot of wrestling fans appreciate that.”
On her personal character in AEW:
“A lot of what’s coming out of me right now, character-wise and personality-wise is real. You know, I spent a few years coaching,” Serena Deeb said. “A lot of positives in that chapter, a lot of gratitude for that chapter. But there was a lot of BS and there was a lot of dealing with difficult personalities with. I’m trying to think of how to say this. Like, this younger generation, right, they’re entitled. They are. They’re entitled. And they complain and you know, all this stuff. So a lot of my content right now is real, it’s real emotion coming out, it’s like, it’s like, you guys don’t even know what, I don’t even say this with bitterness at all. I’m very, proud of my journey and grateful for the struggles that I went through. I’m saying this with, like, you don’t even know what it was like to come up in 2005, 2006, 2007, how hard it was for women. Like the pressures for the women and all this stuff and how good women have it today and they still complain.”
(H/T and transcribed by Wrestling Inc.)