According to a report from PWTorch’s Wade Keller on his hotline, there is growing frustration within AEW regarding Britt Baker. Keller claims Baker has allegedly become increasingly difficult to work with, and a recent incident has reportedly contributed to AEW’s decision to stop booking the former Women’s World Champion.
Keller stated:
“She might be done with AEW. At least the feeling I’m getting from talking to people in AEW is Tony Khan might have her in the same category as some other wrestlers where they just don’t get phone calls and don’t get called in to show up. There is a lot of frustration with her. I’m told—and I’ve heard this pretty consistently—she’s wildly unpopular in the women’s locker room. One person said no one ever wants to see her come back, speaking of the women’s locker room. Now, that is a bold broad statement. I could imagine somebody on social media going, ‘I am a women’s wrestler in AEW, and I want her back.’ Okay, fair enough, but I’m just telling you somebody’s perception is nobody wants her back. That’s how bad it is, somebody is willing to tell me that.”
Keller noted that a situation involving Baker and MJF factored into her absence from television but stated there were additional issues:
“There was the incident with her and MJF, and I’m told that factors into her being off television, but there are other issues with her that have come up. She has become increasingly difficult to work with in a general sense. She has always had a reputation for being difficult to work with. There was a specific situation recently—not counting the MJF situation—where people just threw their hands up. It wasn’t like a huge deal, but it was enough to sort of be the straw that broke the camel’s back in terms of just feeling like, ‘You know what? We’ve got a strong women’s division now compared to when she was on top, and we don’t need to deal with her if she’s going to be this difficult to work with.’ So that’s where they are with her.”
Keller also addressed any potential impact from her relationship with Adam Cole, clarifying:
“I am told the Adam Cole situation is not stopping her. There should be no heat on Adam Cole—he has nothing to do with her not being on TV. Obviously, she had some standout moments in AEW and became a star and was seen as a centerpiece act, but even back then I was hearing about her reputation and being unpopular in certain circles, and being fiercely territorial of her role in the company in a way that just felt unsustainable. From what I’m hearing, at least the attitude right now at the moment, the belief is Tony Khan is fed up enough that he’s just gonna focus his TV time on others. I don’t know what that means in terms of her pay and her contract, and it’s possible eventually things will change, but at this point in asking around, you should not expect to see her back imminently.”
As of now, it appears AEW may be moving forward without Baker in their plans, at least in the short term.
This sounds eerily like the Punk situation. Huge ego can’t be managed by Kahn and AEW. She lives in Orlando. Bring her over to NXT. She’ll do just fine.
i mean she is in her 30s with chronic back problems and nearly a career ending head injury. she has a fall back on a dds degree i hope she just devotes more time to that so she won’t do anything she regrets when she’s older.
Honestly, I don’t know if she would do well in NXT. WWE certainly seems to be better able to cope with big egos than AEW does, but if she were to be problematic backstage there, and WWE thought she did not bring enough to the table to justify dealing with it, they’d probably cut her loose.
I can’t know what’s true and what’s not, this is Keller, but… this isn’t the first rumors of difficulty with her.
Her injury and being out so long saw the division pass her by, she held that division up in the beginning but Toni, Mariah, Mercedes, Statlander, and more are now their gold standards and sadly she just isn’t at that level. It’s got to be hard going from the main pillar of the division to not being a necessary part of it. Doesn’t give her a right to be a dick, but it could explain the friction.
As for the MJF thing, did we ever find out what really happened?
As for the MJF thing, did we ever find out what really happened?
Closest we got was: “The story goes that Baker bad-mouthed MJF’s title match with Will Ospreay in the women’s locker room, and word got back to MJF through his partner Alicia Atout. Ospreay reportedly spoke with Baker first, and then MJF confronted her afterwards, not in the women’s locker room but in a common area backstage, punching a wall in frustration but not right next to Baker to intimidate her as was previously believed.”
