Anna Jay unsuccessfully challenged Hikaru Shida for the AEW Women’s World Championship in the main event of Wednesday’s edition of AEW Dynamite.
Jay appeared on the “Busted Open Radio” podcast ahead of the show to discuss how she began her career in wrestling and more.
You can check out some highlights from the podcast below:
On growing up watching wrestling: “So I grew up watching it like most people who get into wrestling. My dad was a huge wrestling fan so he would be watching it every week, tuning in, and my brothers — it was kind of a joke — neither of them would sit down and watch it with him, but I would and I loved it. I kept telling my parents every week, ‘This is something I really want to do,’ and surprisingly, they were like, ‘Okay, if you really want to, then you should go for it.’”
On hearing about a wrestling school from WCW’s Glacier: “I met a family friend named Glacier from WCW and he told me he was opening up a school with QT Marshall in Atlanta called The Nightmare Factory, but it was called the Power Factory then. He invited me to come check it out and see if it was something I really wanted to do. So I went to a camp and I loved it. I never even stepped foot in the ring, but I watched everything and loved it and the environment. I was like, ‘You know what, this is something I really want to do.’ So I finished the semester of school, moved to Atlanta, and started training.”
On being a big fan of The Bella Twins: “Yes, The Bella Twins. I know that’s pretty cliché, and I’ve said it every time, but they are really what got me into it and made me think, ‘Okay, if they can do it, I can do it.’”
Anna Jay on her title match on Dynamite: “It’s really the coolest thing to be able to talk about it with my dad. He’s so happy and so proud and it’s really a cool thing we get to share. He loves to question me pretty much weekly, which I sometimes get annoyed by, but I’m very grateful for. Like I said, he’s the reason I’m in this. I wish they could be here tonight, but they’ll be watching for sure. Going into something like this tonight is super nerve-wracking, but this is what I wanted, what I dreamed of, and I’m just happy to be here.”
