Brandi Rhodes On Balancing The Women's Roster, More On Equal Pay

Brandi Rhodes took part in a media scrum interview after the All Elite Wrestling ticket announcement party in Las Vegas. She spoke a bit more in detail about how the equal pay system will work in AEW and talked a bit about her experiences in the business and what the company’s goal is for compensation:

“I’m under [a non-disclosure agreement] so I can’t tell you what [amount] people make, but if you’re someone that’s coming straight from the indies, maybe you’ve not been on television for awhile—you’re a male or female—you’re starting at the same spot. If you’re someone that has been on TV for awhile, maybe you were a champion at a company, there are a lot of players that look the same, whether they’re male or female, so they start at the same spot.

The differences in places that I’ve worked before, there have been a lot of times where no matter what, you start at ‘this’ [base amount]. This is your weekly or this is your per show, but then if you talk to a man, the per show is completely different, and they may be a man that’s never been on TV before. I’ve worked for a company that was OK, but it was way below the pay of some of the people that have never been on TV before. I’ve been in this industry for a long time, I’ve worked for some of the top companies, and [have asked] why is that? That’s something that we didn’t want to do. We’re achieving that, and it’s going really good right now, everybody seems to be really happy, so we’re going to keep going.”

In addition, Brandi was asked if they were looking at bringing back any names from the past to balance out the fresh faces with some more established names.

“We’re open to everything. Everything has to make sense to bring someone on. I would say don’t be surprised to see people from the past in any capacity. I definitely think one thing that we’re wanting to focus on are fresh faces. One of the most prestigious names here tonight was Aja Kong; she’s been around a very long time and she’s amazing. But then to be able to announce her with someone like Kylie Rae—she’s made such a name for herself and was a crazy free agent for awhile—everyone was going ‘what’s her deal? What’s her situation? Is she under a deal?’ So it’s nice to be able to have people like that together, and show what they can do without putting it on some kind of rankings system. It’s just talented people working together and they can achieve some great things. We’re really focused on making sure young talent—and if there are older talent—that they are featured and highlighted.”

The Chief Brand(i) Officer also briefly addressed the size of the women’s roster, saying she hopes Double Or Nothing will mark the start of a good representation of female talent:

“We’ve got Double Or Nothing coming, so I don’t really want to say a number so you guess at the situation. I will say at Double Or Nothing, there’s going to be really good representation of females. At every show, will there be that same exact number of representation of females? No, let’s hope not, that would be silly just for the sake of numbers. Everything is going to be what makes sense, but I think people will be very, very pleased with how women are portrayed.

Of course today, when Alex [Marvez] and Conrad [Thompson] were talking, I sent them text messages when they said Britt Baker is the only signed woman. I was like ‘absolutely not!’ Penelope Ford is an incredible female wrestler, I don’t wrestle as much, but I’m a female wrestler. We do have a roster. [laughs] We’re definitely going to have spots for a lot of females to be featured across [Double Or Nothing] and we’re hoping that will be a good representation of what you can expect from us in the future.”