AEW’s Britt Baker Explains Why It’s Hard for Wrestlers to Trust WWE

Dr. Britt Baker has become the face of AEW’s Women’s Divison, so it came as no surprise last year when reports dropped that WWE was initially interested in signing the reigning AEW Women’s World Champion. But in an interview with Inside The Ropes that dropped this week, Baker explained why it’s hard for wrestlers to trust Vince McMahon’s promotion currently. WWE began releasing talent in massive waves starting in January 2020, with the total number of cuts for 2021 eclipsing 80. The releases were typically cited as budget cuts, even as WWE consistently reported record profits. 

“They definitely expressed interest–unfortunately, I’ve got to pick and choose how I say this — but I just feel like you can’t trust anything with that company, whereas at AEW I’ve never been promised anything that didn’t follow through,” Baker said. “So it’s something that, unfortunately, it’s sad that it comes down to that, that it makes a company not really desirable because you can’t trust anything they say. And I know business is business, and I understand totally that’s what it is, but as a wrestler, business is business as well.”

AEW president Tony Khan spoke on WWE’s operations back in November, saying anyone who signed a contract with them was really just agreeing to a “temporary arrangement.”

“Anyone who signs a contract (in WWE) these days, is not signing a real contract. It’s a temporary arrangement,” Khan said. “People who come wrestle with me, a lot of these people are frankly lifers and they know that. There are some people who are here, who work really hard and there are some people who come in and work more than really hard and I feel like is their actual life and will be with me for the rest of my life. I don’t know if everybody who works for my competition can say that. I think there are people who work there and they aren’t sure they will be there next week. There is a lot more security with a contract here.”

“I can’t say I’m going to extend every contract or bring every person back, but I also haven’t been doing mass layoffs. I’m not the most profitable company of all time, I don’t brag about being the most profitable company of all time. I do brag about bringing in a lot of revenue for a start up and being a real success story. What I will brag about is we haven’t been doing mass layoffs and we haven’t fired 15 people last week or 18 people the week before that. It’s not something to be proud of when a company lets all those people go and you’re putting press releases out like that frequently, I don’t think it’s a good thing. I don’t want to make light of that kind of thing ever,” Khan said.