Speaking to Bleacher Report, Brandi Rhodes discussed her new character where she and Awesome Kong are going around taking a lock of hair from the women that they attack and also talked about her life off-screen and what it is like being the Chief Branding Officer of All Elite Wrestling.
Here are some highlights.
Brandi Rhodes On The Motivation For Her New Character:
The good news is that I’m slated to speak at Dynamite for the first time since scalping people. So I think some things will be revealed as I’m given the floor. People have had lots of questions and I’m eager to answer them.
I have to give a lot of credit to Awesome Kong because she came to me wanting something specific for herself and that’s always a great thing, a great sign from a talent when they come in and say, “Hey, this is my vision, this is what I see. Can you help me create this?” Because nobody’s going to be able to create their own vision better than they do themselves.
It’s always great when somebody has something in mind for themselves because they believe in it and they feel it. And that’s going to come across on the screen. Cody’s a big fan of always saying, “we like to let people play their music how they like to play it.” And this is the perfect example of doing that.
She came to me with the sprinklings of this idea, and I worked together with her to make it what it is now and we continue to work on it week after week. I don’t think either of us knew exactly what it was becoming the first time we talked about it, but now we’re really happy with where it’s going.
Brandi Rhodes Talks Juggling Multiple Responsibilities With Both Her TV Character & Off-screen Duties For AEW:
My job is really equal parts public relations, partnerships, community outreach, marketing and establishing of the brand and the messaging. Someone told me the other day, “you know, Brandi, those are all full-time jobs on their own but you do all of these things and, at the end of the day, you are an in-ring talent and on-screen persona.”
Juggling it all is a real challenge. Thankfully, I like to be a busy person because I don’t really get a lot of sleep.
I split my time pretty equally between everything on my workday and on my days off. Even some of my days on the road, even on Wednesday when we have Dynamite, until about 2 p.m., I’m the chief brand officer and then I turn into Brandi Rhodes the character, switching to my more creative side and actually appearing on the show.
But most of the time, my daytime is spent really working on the PR elements, working with our partners, working on new partnerships or community outreaches, which we’re starting to contour now.
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Brandi Rhodes On Her Creative Involvement In AEW’s Women’s Divison:
Sometimes people get really hopeful for things and they hope they can contact me and that I’m going to do these wonderful things. But at the end of the day, I am not the booker of the women’s division. I do not book the weekly matchup for the women. That’s just not my role.
I do make the suggestions for new talent, for instance, signing Kris Statlander. I make creative suggestions where I can, such as with Awesome Kong. I only have so many hours in the day and I already have four full-time jobs.
People have been pretty good as far as not being gripey is concerned. I know a lot of people have hopes and dreams and love certain talents. And I love when people tell me about their favorites because I can look into them, and if there’s anything I can do to help, I absolutely will. And sometimes I have that magic touch and it works, and sometimes I just don’t.
The final say on booking with women comes down to Kenny (Omega) and Tony (Khan). And I think they’ve been doing a great job with that, and we’ll continue to make suggestions where we can here and there and it’s all going to work together harmoniously.
When it comes to the women’s division we’ve been able to lean heavily on Awesome Kong and Dustin Rhodes as coaches to help the women with their in-ring skills and promo work. They make themselves available weekly to the women, myself included.
Dustin is extremely creative and just a really positive force to have working with the women. We’re very fortunate to have him.
You can read the full interview at this link.
