During a recent interview with Sports Illustrated, AEW Superstar QT Marshall commented on fans believing he gets “Go Away” heat, holding tonight’s AEW Dynamite event in a tennis stadium, and more. You can check out some highlights from the interview below:
On doing a wrestling show in a tennis stadium: “Arthur Ashe, the people there are taking a huge chance on us, and we appreciate that. I don’t really get into those things but I’m sure WWE probably doesn’t want us at the Garden, right? And we’re not going to piggyback off of them. But at the same time I know with Tony [Khan]’s connections with other sports, I think this was the right fit. It’s never been done before. It’s a huge building, it’s a nice building and it goes more up than out. So, there’s not really a bad seat in the house. I’m very excited and I think we’re going to put on an amazing show like we always do, but I think we’re gonna maybe do a little extra just because it’s our first real stadium show. The people of New York, I think they need it. I think they need AEW just as much as we need them, just to kinda let them know, “Hey, there is other wrestling in town.’”
On what he’s expecting from the fans: “A lot of the people that come to our shows, they travel. There’s going to be people from all over the Tri-state area. They’re just these rabid, die-hard AEW fans. There’s nothing like it. Pandemic wrestling really kinda, I don’t want to say it hurt us, because we’ve been doing really well no matter what. Tony had great ideas with putting those wrestlers in the crowd. Even that week that we couldn’t put anyone in the crowd, he had people in trailers that were miked up, so they could still make noise and still get the ambiance of wrestling. But there is nothing like being in front of an AEW audience. They’re as loud as they possibly can be. Even with myself out there. The Twitter universe is going to say that I have what we call “go-away heat,” where they don’t want me out there at all, but the live crowd says different. When 16,000 people at the United Center are chanting, “Q.T. sucks!” I think I’m doing something right.”
On how AEW came out of the pandemic era stronger: “I think it also helped that, even though we don’t have a Performance Center [like WWE does], Tony had Daily’s Place. It was outdoors, so there were no real restrictions when it came to—heck, we filmed Dark until 3 a.m., which is absurd. But that was how we were developing talent. We have such a young roster—and, when I say young, I mean age-wise, but also age in wrestling. You know what I mean? There are people that have been wrestling for years and years and years, but they’ve never been on TV, so it’s completely different. That’s why, anyone that traveled during the pandemic—it was Tony’s idea, like, hey, if you’re willing to travel during all this stuff that’s going on, you’re not just gonna come and sit down and do nothing. You’re gonna work. And that’s when Dark went from four matches to 10 matches, and sometimes we were up to like 20 matches on an episode. People could complain but it’s getting guys and girls reps, and that’s what we need, especially now that we’re ready to perform in front of these live crowds again, it actually helps a lot.”
On AEW giving more opportunities to independent talent: “Yeah, 100%. When the pandemic hit, I remember Tony said, “A lot of these guys are missing out on WrestleMania weekend. It’s a lot of money in these independent wrestlers’ pockets. Let’s help them out.” I don’t remember what the number was. It was absurd, I remember that, the amount of money they were getting paid per match. And then it was, let’s put them in the audience. We’ll put them in the audience for Dynamite and they can make noise, but we repay them by giving them a match on Dark. And most of the time the matches are back-and-forth. They’re not just straight-up squashes. Of course, there are gonna be those as well, and if you draw that stick, I’m always very honest with the local talent. Hey, today might be your day; it might not. But you’re still gonna get out there. You’re still gonna get seen. And if there’s something that catches our eye, they’re gonna invite you back. And if they invite you back, it could lead to something. I mean, how many guys and girls have we signed from the pandemic alone? It’s crazy the amount of people we’ve brought in to do a match on Dark and Tony has come up with an idea for or they just stole the show. One of them was my student Lee Johnson. Like you said, there are a lot of independent wrestlers that—even if they just wanted it to boost their own careers, because maybe they didn’t see AEW as a fit for them or we didn’t see them as a fit for us, that doesn’t mean that we’re still not going to give them opportunities.”
