AEW star Britt Baker had praise for several names in the promotion who have helped her character development in an exclusive interview.
Britt Baker listed the likes of Chris Jericho, Cody Rhodes and Kenny Omega as big influences on her heel persona that has seen her grow into one of the top names in women’s wrestling.
She said:
“It was a combination (of people who had the idea for me to stay on TV while injured). I mean Tony (Khan) is the guy behind the control board, so what he says goes, so Tony definitely had a lot of faith in me. I actually got really lucky in the sense that my injury was only, I think it was like three months total, so it wasn’t a six-to-nine months thing, because that’s really hard then to sit in a golf cart pretending it’s a Rolls-Royce cutting promos. Nine months would have been a long time of that.
“But because it was a three or four month injury, and then I had Cody (Rhodes) helping me with promo ideas, Kenny (Omega) helping me with promo and vignette ideas, and then I had the feud with Big Swole at the time too, and Reba (Rebel) was on the team and Reba was fresh so our interactions were fresh and people were really being entertained by that. So it was a lot of everybody kind of jumping to help me. And I was really, really thankful, so Kenny – Jericho’s always, always, always, always helping me, Cody, Tony. I’m very thankful to have the team we do, because I wouldn’t be who I am or where I am today without them.
“Tony (Khan) is definitely number one because he had so much faith in me and put me out there to do these live heel promos with little to no heel experience. But it was really just trusting me and giving me pep talks to be heel Britt. Be the heel that’s inside you because that’s really what it is. Cody has helped me tremendously with promo work and helping figure out who Dr Britt is. Cody’s really, really good at that and to this day I still practice promos.
“And Chris Jericho because it’s a kind of copycat image of WCW Chris Jericho the ‘role model’, and just took it and spun it my own way. And I always have to bounce back to Kenny because Kenny always has so much faith in women and women’s wrestling period, so I have to say Kenny too because I have such a soft spot for him.”
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Britt Baker started off in AEW as a babyface but then transitioned into being an obnoxious heel, a role she’s excelled in. Speaking on that topic, she said:
“I didn’t really have a lot of confidence (as a babyface). I was scared s**tless. I was brand new on TV, I got plucked off the indies in front of 100 people and then wrestling in front of millions of people on TV. I literally had no idea what I was doing. I didn’t have a gimmick or a character or anything that I had a lot of faith in myself. It was just like, ‘Oh you’re the face of the women’s division. I’m like, ‘Okay but like, am I? I’m scared’.
“But then being a heel, I literally just get to say and do and think out loud all the time and it’s so much fun, because you have to get comfortable with being uncomfortable. You have to be like, ‘What’s something right now that’s going to piss everybody off’. Which, in normal life, you wouldn’t do that, because you have filters that would stop you from saying that. Not in wrestling, you have to say it all, and for me that is just so fun. It’s like sick and twisted right, but it’s so much fun. And it’s just something that I can finally sink my teeth into, that I have my own ideas, I have my own way of how I would say or do something. And it’s confidence is what it is.
“I didn’t really think about (whether I’d be a babyface or a heel) either one way or another because I’ve never even considered being a heel. I’ve never done heel stuff, it’s such a foreign world to me. Like putting heat on in the match, I’m like, ‘What? I don’t know what is going on’. So I just always envisioned myself being a babyface but now I can’t envision myself being a babyface if that makes sense.”
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You can watch the full interview with Britt Baker below, or check out some more highlights from it on our exclusives page. We’ll continue to release more in the coming days.
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