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Indy Star Slams AEW Backstage Culture

By John Canton • Published 29th July 2023
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An indy wrestler that wrestled one match for AEW doesn’t have fond memories of the company.

During AEW Dynamite this past Wednesday, Dr. Britt Baker D.M.D defeated Taya Valkyrie in singles action. While they are both talented women, there were some rough moments in the match where some moves didn’t look like they were executed properly and the match was heavily criticized by fans.

What was interesting also is that AEW actually showed a sign that said: “Book The Women’s Division Better.”

A lot of fans that watch AEW speak out about how AEW just doesn’t dedicate as much time to the women’s division compared to other companies. Even though AEW has five hours of primetime TV these days, they usually stick to one women’s match per show and they rarely get more than ten minutes for a match. There also aren’t a lot of stories for women in AEW.

LuFisto is a veteran women’s wrestler that is well respected in the business. She worked one show for AEW at a Dark ‘Elevation’ taping in April 2022 where she lost a six-woman tag team match. In a tweet, LuFisto noted that we shouldn’t necessarily blame the booking in AEW, but the women in the company instead.

It’s cute how people blame booking for a bad women’s division.

Talent with too much power; talent denigrating each other; talent trash-talking potential employees so they never get in as soon as they walk in…

It starts here.

– The one you called FN French Canadian a**hole

According to Sean Ross Sapp during a Fightful Q&A, there is a lot of truth to what LuFisto was saying.

“Yes, there is truth to it. There is somebody that tried to hold her (LuFisto) down, that talked trash about her. There’s a lot of trash talking within that locker room. It’s something that I’ve constantly heard about over the last couple of years.

“I can’t point fingers and say who. A lot of people pointed the finger at Britt and said, ‘You talked trash about Thunder Rosa’. Listen, there’s a lot of it that goes on there.

“I will say this about Britt – Britt experienced some stuff that nobody should ever have to go through, and I understand why she’s got her guard up in that sense.

“But the LuFisto thing – LuFisto, among people that work with her and have worked with her, she just holds some of the highest respect. And there was a not-so-good situation that I am of the belief emerged from a ton of miscommunication that didn’t help her out when she came in there.

“Because it was supposed to be for a lot more than what she was brought in and ended up doing. At least as it was relayed to me and relayed to her, and I mean this from the April show last year where she worked Dark (Elevation), she worked like a three-minute six-woman tag.

“There had been people that I talked to that claimed they were going to be looking at her as a potential coach, and then when I followed up and said, ‘Oh, what happened there?’, they’re like, ‘I don’t know’, and then I was told no meeting happened, anything like that.”

AEW Presents Collision Featuring Huge Tag Team Title Match

Tonight on AEW Collision from Hartford, the company will present these matches:

* AEW Tag Team Championships: FTR (c) vs. MJF & Adam Cole

* El Hijo Del Vikingo, Action Andretti & Darius Martin vs. Juice Robinson & The Gunns

* Samoa Joe vs. Gravity

* Ladder Match for Andrade’s Mask: Andrade El Idolo vs. Buddy Matthews

* Kiera Hogan vs. Mercedes Martinez

Also, their preview said that we will hear from CM Punk as well.

H/T Wrestletalk for the transcript above