In a recent interview with Insider, AEW President Tony Khan discussed expanding the promotion’s reach and roster outside the pro wrestling industry. He said,
“I always love when people come up to Orange Cassidy and Kris Statlander and talk about how they saw them on an episode of “Floor Is Lava” on Netflix. And you have Chris Jericho being in a bunch of movies. And a number of wrestlers have done music — Brody King is a musician, Darby Allin has worked with a number of musicians. We’ve brought hip-hop stars like Rick Ross into AEW. The biggest celebrity crossover has to be when we brought Shaq in. If I were a kid today seeing someone like him do AEW, that would have gotten me into wrestling. I really am focused on getting AEW stars involved in projects outside of wrestling as much as possible. Darby Allin is actually talking to me about climbing Mount Everest.”
In a recent interview with amNYmetro, Willow Nightingale discussed her breakout NJPW match with Mercedes Moné and her future ambitions in AEW.
The former NJPW Strong Women’s Champion also declared that she will capture the AEW Women’s World Title sooner or later.
You can check out some highlights from the interview below:
On her NJPW Strong tournament win: “I wasn’t just representing Willow anymore, I was representing AEW, in this case, against obviously an amazing competitor, somebody who I consider to be one of the most prolific women wrestlers. It was a big flipping of a switch in terms of my career, I think it was a big launching pad for me. In a personal realm, it also was this big moment of like, wow, you can really do this.”
On a potential rematch with Moné: “She did get injured in that match, so there is always going to be that little chip on my shoulder, and the little asterisk where people are like ‘Oh, but Mercedes got hurt.’ I’d like to just have the most competitive match that we could, you know, barring any kind of confusion out from left field, and just have a nice match and see where that brings us.”
On her hopes to challenge for the AEW Women’s title belt: “I had an opportunity to wrestle Toni Storm when she was the champion at Forbidden Door in Toronto earlier this year. I didn’t walk away the champion, but I do feel like that was kind of at a turning point where people started seeing me more and more of a legitimate contender for that championship. So, in the next few weeks, in the coming months, I hope to continue to prove that I’m a worthy competitor for that and a legitimate contender for that and walk away with that championship.”
