The former AEW talent recaps her exit interview and Tony Khan’s remark about her on Twitter.
Following a two-year run with All Elite Wrestling, Big Swole is now a free agent and this coming weekend, she’ll be in action at the Black Wrestlers Matter 2 event along with competing against Trish Adora at F1ght Club Pro’s ‘In Grapitol We Trust’ show.
At the end of November, Big Swole formally announced that she wrapped up with AEW. The following month, she spoke about her exit from the company and voiced her opinions about the internal structure of AEW, diversity and the women’s division among other talking points. Her comments drew the attention of Tony Khan who tweeted out that he did not re-sign Swole because of her wrestling ability.
Swole was welcomed onto the Public Enemies Podcast and mentioned that in her AEW exit interview, she asked Khan to assess her in-ring skills and he said that was not a reason why they were parting ways. Swole admitted that she was hurt by his tweet because she and Tony considered each other friends.
I don’t understand that [Tony Khan’s remark about her in-ring ability]. I don’t understand that. Like it just — I feel like it just wasn’t necessary, especially when you’re in a position of power and then you know, sometimes, people with power, they do of course make mistakes but however, I feel like you’ve been in this position of power for a very long time, whether it’d be with different sport organizations and everything so I feel like a certain decorum, you should have it, in a sense and especially, like I said, with the line and I only say this because during our exit interview, I asked him about my skills and about my wrestling. I literally asked him, I was like, ‘Hey –’ because I was asking why I wasn’t on TV for a year because I wanted to have some closure so that I can move on with my life and I asked him, I was like, ‘Hey, what is the reason behind me not being on TV?’ I’m like, ‘Is it my wrestling skills? Do you think that I am not up to par?’ And he blatantly just came out and just praised me and said, ‘Oh no, that’s definitely not it.’ Like he gave me his reason and everything but, my skills were never into question and it sucks because sometimes, you know, you allow people’s personal views to seep into yourself when that should be a complete personal issue because you know, what people think about you is none of your concern. But it did have me going back and looking at my most recent matches and I watched my match with Diamante and I did, I watched the ‘three strikes’ match but the one right before that, the singles match where she cheated with the rope and that was money. I watched it, I sent it to other people in the business that I trusted that actually have been into the ring and stuff like that and the proof was right there. ‘Okay, all right.’ I was like, sometimes, you have to check yourself and I feel like that’s where my growth and my strength is-is that I know myself well enough that hey, you know what? I’ll double-check myself because maybe sometimes, you are in the wrong. Sometimes, maybe you’re so clouded up here [in your head], maybe you’re not seeing clearly but honey, the clarity, not in this case. I got clear eyes.
I was like dude, you weren’t saying all that when you was smoking my weed. He said that we were friends and I was like — what gets me upset is that when someone says that you’re friends and like, of course he has all the money in the world. He can buy all the shmizz he wants to but I’m gracious enough to give what I have in fellowship, break bread with you. I’m opening up my heart to you. You said that we’re friends. I called you, we’ve text. It’s just upsetting because I thought that it was genuine and I’m a cancer [zodiac sign], I’m an emotional person and when I let people inside of my heart, when I let people inside of my circle, my family, that’s important to me and for someone to break that line of trust is just — it’s unbelievable. It’s heartbreaking. Really it is because I thought we were friends. But damn.
At All Out 2020, Swole and Britt Baker met in a cinematic-style match that took place at a dentist office. Swole shared that it was taped at the office of Britt Baker’s friend who is also in the dental field. Swole and Baker had been feuding on-screen for several months at that point and Swole feels she was the perfect person to turn Britt into a heel.
During the filming of their match, there were some minor struggles that Swole explained. There was a minor argument that happened between herself and Baker. The match did leave a sour taste in Swole’s mouth because she was not able to incorporate her ideas. She then went on to praise members of AEW’s women’s division such as Nyla Rose, Abadon, Kiera Hogan and Jade Cargill.
I was the perfect person to turn her [Britt Baker] heel because they didn’t trust anybody else to do it because I had the most charisma, I had the most character. It’s just is what it is. It’s just in my nature, it’s just me and this is how I am off-screen and on-screen. So they needed somebody that was gonna, one, hold their weight and I did that and then some, because I do my job and I’m accountable and so, the Tooth and Nail match [at All Out], she wasn’t necessarily — she was ‘cleared’. I’m gonna put quotations up because it was like a gray area. I knew she could do stuff but she wasn’t cleared to have a match-match yet. But we were able to still do stuff. So we do cinematic but we couldn’t do any of the matches, like a real match and so we’re doing this and they have everything kind of laid out in a sense and I sh*t you not, I stopped production and — because we were in the last scene, towards down the hallway before I put the syringe in. Now the syringe was her idea, so I was like, ‘Okay. We’re gonna do this’ and I look at Kenny [Omega], I was like, ‘Kenny, we haven’t wrestled. There’s no substance to this. This is just –‘ I don’t know what this is. This is a trailer at this point, you know? Because I couldn’t say certain things, I couldn’t make fun of her being a dentist and her Doctorate because she said that’s her real job. So we had like a mini argument about that because I was like, ‘Well, I’ve been making fun of you being a dentist this whole time. Why stop now?’ But, we got to the end and I was like, ‘Can we just put a little bit more into this? A little bit more.’ So I’m like — Kenny and I stopped for, it was at least 40 minutes to try to put some type of action into it so that’s when we came in, she did the fisherman onto the floor, whatever and we just started fighting-fighting, if that makes sense until we got pretty much to the end and it was a long day. It was a really long day. It was a one-day shoot. It was a long one-day shoot at her friend’s dentist office that hadn’t opened yet.
It was just, I don’t know. It leaves a sour taste in my mouth because it wasn’t necessarily what I wanted. I didn’t have reigns over everything or much of anything. I didn’t really have input that I wanted to like I did with ‘three strikes’ [against Diamante]. Now that was my baby, you know? I came in there, I was like, ‘This is the idea, this is who I wanna do it with. This is going to work,’ and it… it told a complete story and I got more women into it and even women from the back were thanking me because they were like, ‘Thank you Swole for letting us get something’ and I’m like, ‘Yeah, if I can work somebody into the story and it’s organic, I’m gonna do that’ because I want us to succeed. I want people to see that we have some women in here that can just go. They have the charisma like, I’m a big fan of Nyla Rose, I’m a big fan Abadon and of course Kiera [Hogan] and Diamante and stuff like that. I love their work ethic and Jade [Cargill], Jade’s work ethic. They’re there, they were at training. It wasn’t mandatory but they were there, you know what I mean?
Going back to the topic of Tony Khan’s tweet about her, Swole feels it is past the point of an apology being acceptable. She stated that they still follow one another on all socials and those who are close to him reached out to her after the situation began to make the rounds.
On my end, I feel like we have gone past the point where it was acceptable for you to give me or send out an apology or a retracement or even just, ‘Hey, I’m sorry that you’re experiencing all this crap.’ You know, it’s at a point where I’m like, well, I’ve said my prayers. I’ve pretty much almost given up on it in a sense because I don’t want anything like this having power over me. Being worried about, ‘Oh, is he gonna apologize? Is he gonna apologize?’ He can apologize whenever he wants to or even if he feels the need to. I’m just at the point where you have my number, you still follow me on all social medias, you could’ve been reached out. There’s avenues, there’s streets, there’s boulevards, there’s hovels, there’s lanes, there’s courts [Swole laughed]. There’s even forbidden doors because I’m like, you know, people that are close and dear to you are reaching out to me and you know, seeing this so I know you’re seeing this.
After the tweet, Swole began to receive messages and comments that had to do with her family. She added that it’s not the first time comments about have made about her children, but it’s the first time those comments have been highlighted.
That was pretty much my cutoff point too [people on social media bringing up her family]. I was just like, okay, we’re not gonna do this and what we’re not gonna do is try to bully me into accepting someone’s apology either, you know? Because it was just like people are sending me receipts. This is not the first time anybody’s saying anything about it, you know? Or about my kid. People have been saying stuff. They’re just now getting caught. You know, hey, what’s done in the dark will always come to the light.
As mentioned, she’ll be making her return to in-ring competition this weekend. Her last sanctioned match was in early September at the AEW Dark tapings at Universal Studios.
If the quotes in this article are used, please credit the Public Enemies Podcast with an H/T to POST Wrestling for the transcriptions.
