Recently in conversation with Alicia Atout, TBS Champion Kris Statlander commented on a recent backstage segment on AEW Rampage where she used Renee Paquette to do squats.
The segment in question saw Statlander cut a promo on Mercedes Martinez, who challenged her for the TBS Championship the following night on AEW Collision.
You can check out some highlights of Statlander discussing the segment below:
On why and how she came up with the idea: “I mean, I had no idea what I was going to do because I was just told to talk about the upcoming match with Mercedes Martinez on Collision the next day. I feel like I try to be a very serious person when I have my promise, and that’s just not who I am. Anyone that knows me knows that it’s just not right unless it’s super genuine and just wasn’t one of those promos that needed to be like, ‘This is my whole world, my whole life.’ I just needed to do something different and do something that was more me. Obviously, I asked Renee, I said, ‘Hey, what do you think about this?’ and she was like, ‘Alright, let’s do it.’ That was our second take of that promo. We just had to make sure… so I was very tired. I was very, very tired during that second take, but somehow, I got through it, and the people went nuts over it. Everyone loved it. I was like, ‘Alright, I guess I just have to squat everyone that’s interviewing me from now on.’”
On the execution aspect of the segment: “I don’t know. Everyone knows that I did not grow up watching wrestling. I don’t have a great wrestling historian-type brain, but I know that the people that were helping film it and helped me find out what to say with it, they were like, ‘That was a very ’80s-style wrestling promo. It was one of their favorite promos. That’s why it felt like easy to do, because it’s like, all those big crazy characters that you’ve seen, like Randy Savage and Hogan promos, and stuff like that. It felt like I was almost just doing that. I was like, ‘Why haven’t I been doing this the whole time? This is so much easier.’ I guess I just channeled wrestling history that day, I don’t know. Sometimes you just go with it. It just worked so well.”
“Tomorrow night on Collision… Momma’s coming home!”
TBS Champion Kris Statlander will face Mercedes Martinez TOMORROW NIGHT on #AEWCollision LIVE at 8pm ET/ 7pm CT on TNT!
Watch #AEWRampage on TNT!@callmekrisstat | @RealMMartinez pic.twitter.com/J4WU5JX7TO
— All Elite Wrestling (@AEW) August 5, 2023
