During a recent appearance on Busted Open Radio, Kris Statlander spoke about winning the AEW TBS Title from Jade Cargill in her surprise return from injury at the Double or Nothing 2023 pay-per-view event last month.
Statlander praised Cargill for what she did with the title and opened up about wanting to make her own reign stand out. She said,
“Very much what I’ve been saying where I was nervous and I wasn’t sure if I was the one who deserved to be the one to do it (end Jade Cargill’s undefeated streak & reign as TBS Champion), and it’s not just because of how much they’ve built her up. It’s she has such incredible star power, she has such a presence to her, people wanna see her… I was putting pressure on myself thinking, how am I going to live up to the type of person and the type of star that she is? She’s undefeated, she’s brought so many outside eyes to wrestling, she’s done so much and it’s gonna take a while to realize that I don’t have to be the next Jade. I just have to be Kris Statlander and I’ve got to make my title reign be mine and I can still go out and do events and do things that she did but I’m not gonna be Jade, no one’s gonna be Jade. Jade’s the first-ever TBS Champion, she’s the longest-reigning champion in AEW history and I think those are two incredible accolades that no one else in the world is going to have. It’s a lot of pressure about, you know, proving that I am the one that was able to step up and I can step up and I will and even though I’ve taken — not that I’ve taken all this time off but I’ve had to because of being injured. But I can step right back into the scene and be a champion that people deserve and that people wanna see and it’s been just about a week since I’ve been back and I’ve already, technically, wrestled four matches and I am so tired but, it’s everything that I’ve wanted it to be and I’m just so thankful for everyone who’s trusted me.”
