Big Swole on her podcast said that a lack of diversity and structure led to her and AEW mutually deciding to part ways.
On her Call In podcast (h/t Fightful), Swole discussed how the structure within the company seemed to be “a little off”, pointing out the lack of time for women and new talent coming in.
“I know fans of the company don’t take criticism well sometimes. But know this, this is someone from the inside, the structure is a little off,” she said. “It’s fine to be loose, but I like to have a little bit more structure. I felt like the women shouldn’t have gone through everything they went through just to get on time. You’re signed to this big company, you should get time. All these men are getting time, but the women aren’t getting anything or you’re not putting people on TV because more people are coming in. There are more people coming in, but you don’t have enough product for all of these people.”
Swole also discussed what she felt was a lack of diversity, particularly within AEW’s hierarchy.
“I do not beat around the bush when it comes to diversity and my people,” she said. “There is no representation, truly, and when there is, it does not come across in the black community as genuine, at all. And I don’t know why everybody is so afraid to accept it or say it, but it’s not a good look. What happens is, you have this wonderful company that treats people like family, but there is nobody that looks like me that is represented at the top. They are not in the room with them. They’re not helping to necessarily influence decisions, but to explain why certain slang, why they are certain words that shouldn’t be said. There is no one else who can explain our culture and experience except for us.”
“I believe that [AEW] is making better strides than before, but a couple of things need to be fixed,” she later added. “You have to be able to call people out because not everything is not perfect. I hope they listen to this with an open heart and not just, ‘Ah, she’s just saying this because of XYZ.’ I genuinely want them to succeed. I love art. I love to be creative and I love wrestling and I want it to succeed and I want the people in it to succeed if they are genuine people. I want WWE to succeed. I just want wrestling to flourish and I don’t want it to be a long-forgotten, Tartarian sport where ‘in the old days, we used to wrestle,’ I want nothing but the best, but I also want the change and application to happen. With promises you made to be diverse, I want to see that. Not just with black people. I would love to see a dark-skinned Latina or Latino or Hispanic or just something, more Asians. I feel like Asians, Indians do not get love. They just don’t. It’s such a big gap. I hate the fact that I turn on the TV and it’s the same stuff over and over again, like the Truman show. Hopefully, they get the message.”
Tony Khan commented on Swole’s comments, writing on Twitter: “The top 2 @AEW execs are brown (me & Megha)!! Jade, Bowens, Caster, Dante, Nyla, Isiah & Marq Quen all won on tv this month. The TBS Title Tournament has been very diverse. I let Swole’s contract expire as I felt her wrestling wasn’t good enough.”
Swole last wrestled on the September 21 episode of AEW Dark, where she defeated Allie Katch. On November 30, she announced that she and AEW had decided to mutually part ways.
