During a recent appearance on the “Battleground” podcast, Tony Khan hyped Kenny Omega vs. Brian Cage on tonight’s episode of AEW Dynamite: Maximum Carnage.
The match will mark Omega’s first AEW bout in over a year.
Khan said, “It’s so exciting to have some of the top stars returning to AEW. Tonight, Kenny Omega returns to the AEW ring for the first time in over a year. We haven’t seen Kenny Omega in the ring here in America in a really long time. He did have a comeback match in Japan that went very well, but now he’s being tested against one of the most powerful and one of the most impressive athletes in really in my lifetime that I can ever remember, and that’s The Machine Brian Cage. It’s been huge having Kenny Omega back in AEW. I’m incredibly excited about Omega returning to AEW and all the possibilities and everything that comes out of tonight, when Kenny Omega returns to the ring on Dynamite against Brian Cage.”
During a recent appearance on “The Takedown” podcast, Julia Hart reflected on her journey with AEW over the past four years.
You can check out some highlights from the podcast below:
On how far she’s come in four years: “I think it’s just crazy how much I’ve been through in four years of being just in wrestling. Having a cheerleader character, switching and doing a whole 180, building my way up to become the TBS Champion, and then going through an injury all in a span of just four years. I feel like I’ve been through so much and I still have so much more to go through. Everything comes with a lesson and just figuring out how to navigate where you’re going and how to do it and just to do it with grace. So, I think that I looked at the injury as more of a lesson and more of just like a ‘calm down Julia, like breathe, and take in everything that just happened, because great things just happened.”
On learning to wrestle: “I learned how to wrestle on TV. I think Ruby Soho told me once that it took her, I don’t something like eight years before she was on TV. She had eight years of learning before she then got on TV. And, like, my 10th match was on TV against Britt Baker, so I didn’t know what I was doing. I think that’s where my cheerleading background helped a lot of like remembering a routine and being in front of a crowd. And honestly, it was never the crowd that I was afraid of. It was more so coming back and making sure Tony’s happy, or whoever my coach was — Dustin Rhodes — is happy with what I just did, and whether or not what I did makes sense … that is more so what I was scared of.”
On deciding the join the House of Black and taking on a darker character: “I just needed to take myself more seriously. I think in the cheerleader role, I looked at the cheerleader as like an annoying preppy girl, because I was a cheerleader all of high school. That’s how we were always looked at, you know, just the annoying preppy girls. But, I was never really like that. I was never smiling. I always wore baggy clothes and a jacket with a hood over my head in high school. When I got to AEW, everyone’s like, ‘Oh, you’re so cute. You’re so bubbly. Like, do this, this, and this.’ So then it was really hard for me to be aggressive, because I’m this cute, bubbly little girl. I don’t know how to translate that to make me serious. It wasn’t until I saw what they were about to do with House of Black, and I was like, I think I could do that. They asked me to do a promo for them and I did it. And they’re like, ‘Oh, you do have something to you. You are more than just a little girl.” They were like, okay. And I was like, I guess okay, we’ll see. And then it took four months for me to actually join the group and I was just patiently waiting.”
On a potential House of Hart stable with Skye Blue: “I think that would be cool. Having like a little girl group would always be fun. Anything working with the women is great, just to get more girls on TV and doing things is awesome.”
On other potential members: “Obviously Skye [Blue] would be great. Abadon could be a good candidate. Penelope [Ford} could be a good candidate. Anna Jay could be a candidate, you never know. She was in the Dark Order. So yeah, I think if anybody wanted to present themselves in that way, I think it could be really cool.”
On which of her wrestling gimmicks are most like her: “I think I’m nothing like either, I would say. I guess maybe now that I’ve grown up I think I’ve realized I can be a more bubbly person to be around and more outgoing than I would give myself before. I would be like ‘No I don’t smile. I don’t do this or that.’ [laughs] But I’m kind of in between. A good mixture of both. I am just a normal girl who happens to love wrestling and got into it. I think I have a healthy balance of both. I’ve always been into spooky stuff. I love Halloween.”
On how she deals with nerves: “I definitely do feel nervous before I walk out there, and then once I’m out there, then I become confident. I think before, maybe, I would still be nervous going out there, but now I have more sense of confidence when I’m out there. But then when I get to the back, I’m nervous again because I’m like ‘Oh gosh, all of my peers just watched me. I hope they thought I did okay.’ And, you know, hoping Tony likes it as well. There are still those nerves, too. I think the main thing I do is I try to act like I’m not nervous and I try to be as chill as possible to everyone around me. And everyone is like, ‘Oh, you’re so chill,’ and I’m like, ‘Yeah,’ but in my head, I’m like, ‘Oh my gosh, no.’ But I try not to let anybody know that [laughs].