In a recent interview with Fightful, All Elite Wrestling referee Aubrey Edwards discussed several topics, including how she got her start in the wrestling business.
“I retired because dance is hard on your body and I had a lot of stuff going on in my personal life. I stepped away from that and found out I was super depressed because I didn’t have a performance outlet. I didn’t realize how important that was for me.
I was into my local Indy wrestling scene, my husband was wrestling on shows and the ref team came to me and said, ‘we think you’d be a great ref. You should try out.’ I was like, ‘what the hell are you talking about?’ They said, ‘you love the locker room, you’re friends with everybody, and you have this performance background.’ So, I tried out and I sucked.
There’s a lot that you miss – when you watch wrestling from the front, moves look a certain way, you read facial cues. The moment you stand behind the wrestlers and try and figure out what they’re doing, I just got lost. I was in the way, I didn’t know what to do with my hands. It was awful. I think I cried after the tryout. But I stuck with it because you should always try to stick with someone a little bit. Two months later, I made my debut. Two and a half years later, I’m here.”
The interview is available in full at this link.