Veda Scott has been a standout on the independent scene for quite a while. Since her debut in 2011, she’s also worked for SHIMMER, Ring of Honor, and Impact Wrestling. In 2020, she earned an opportunity to appear for AEW. She was part of the commentary team for the Deadly Draw women’s tag team tournament.
In an interview with Fightful, Scott talked about her brief time with Tony Khan’s promotion and how she’d love to make a return.
You can check out some highlights from the interview below:
Her experience working with AEW: “Sometimes I feel like, ‘Oh, should I still be talking about this two years later, two and a half years later, whatever it was?’ But, like yes, because it truly was, to this day, the best experience of my announcing career. It changed everything for me; it was an absolute life changer and a career changer for me. Obviously, it happened during COVID, so this was during those Jacksonville tapings where I’m pretty sure there weren’t any fans at all, it was just the wrestlers around the ring, or maybe it was towards the end where they started to let in a select group of people. So, in general, these were closed tapings. During the pandemic, I didn’t take any wrestling bookings. I kind of thought that I was just on a long break, there were much more important things going on, and I didn’t know if I was ever going to wrestle again or what. We all were kind of in that place. There were some bookings happening, and I wasn’t taking them, and I didn’t know what was going to go on. Long story short, I got contacted about AEW, which was kind of surprising to me because, again, I thought like, ‘Okay, you’re just not gonna be doing this as long as the world is in chaos.’ There was a process involved in talking to lots of people and kinda getting vetted for this position, and then it was established that maybe I would do commentary for this women’s tag tournament. The whole thing was set up as a way to bring in some women of independent wrestling, and a lot of them are paired up with AEW people, and they would just kind of launch a bunch of new people. I don’t know if it was always the plan to bring someone in to do commentary or if it became the plan; anyway, they asked me to do it, and I was really lucky.”
Working alongside Tony Schiavone: “I did the tournament, and I did it with Tony Schiavone. There was a shifting of voices at that time. I had actually never met Tony Schiavone until that day, and I didn’t know that I was doing the tournament with him, and he didn’t know it either until very shortly before, so he had like no rapport going into it. That’s how much of a f**king rockstar professional Tony Schiavone is. People always say that I had great chemistry with Tony or whatever, but I had never met this man beforehand. That’s how professional he is. That’s how good he is at his job. I had done announcing for Ring Of Honor before, but the level of production was different at the time. This was like my biggest gig ever, and I know what I’m doing, maybe, but I’ve never done it for AEW. I’ve never worked on TV. Yes, it was Dark, but it’s the same setup. It’s the same production. I’m just like, ‘Don’t f**k this up. Don’t be so bad that they fire you during the broadcast.’ I had Tony Khan on my headset, and I was just ready to hear him like, ‘We’re gonna wrap this up, now.’ That is just a testament to how good Tony Schiavone is. He was able to steer this ship with someone who is completely new to him as a person, let alone a broadcaster. It went really well, and then I got asked to come back for the next tapings, which I wasn’t sure that I was going to do. Tony Khan asked me to come back the next time, and I was like, ‘Okay, I will literally do whatever.’ So I came back, and I got to film the semi-finals, and then the finals, like you said, were on an episode of Dynamite, which was taped.”
Wanting to do more with AEW: “All of them were so helpful in giving me little tips here and there, and I don’t know, I have nothing negative to say. The only negative thing is I want to do it again. I want to do more. I had such a great experience. Obviously, things are a little different now that they aren’t down in Jacksonville and that they’re touring again. I don’t know. I would obviously like to walk right up to Tony Khan and be like, ‘Excuse me, I think I could do really good work for you, like please?’ With that not being possible, I guess the only recourse is to keep doing what I’m doing, and hopefully, someone notices.”
