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Dans une excellente entrevue pour Sean Ross Sapp, de Fightful, la lutteuse québécoise LuFisto s’est livrée à coeur ouvert sur son expérience décevante à la AEW l’an dernier.
Lufisto a également profité de cette entrevue pour faire quelques suggestions afin que la division féminine de la AEW atteigne un niveau supérieur, en plus d’avoir de manière générale une attitude plus positive dans les vestiaires.
Cette légende vivante de la lutte féminine et indy avait auparavant décoché une flèche à l’endroit de la AEW sur X (Twitter), soutenant que dans les coulisses plusieurs talents étaient toxiques, avec trop de pouvoir et dénigrant certains collègues.
“It’s cute how people blame booking for a bad women’s division. Talent with too much power; talent denigrating each other; talent trash-talking potential employees so they never get in as soon as they walk in…It starts here. – The one you called FN French Canadian asshole.”
Voici quelques observations de LuFisto qui, AEW Dark Elevation le 6 avril 2022, avait fait équipe avec Emi Sakura et The Bunny contre Ruby Soho, Anna Jay et Skye Blue.
– QT Marshall lui avait promis un poste d’entraîneure, une idée intéressante pour LuFisto car elle aime partager son expérience avec les jeunes talents. Elle avoue qu’une fois sur place, rien ne semblait vraiment précis à son sujet. Elle a pu rencontrer quelques lutteurs, dont Dustin Rhodes, CM Punk, Christian, Mercedes Martinez, mais LuFisto a vite constaté qu’il y avait de la désorganisation et que trop de gens travaillaient chacun de leur côté.
“I go in, meet Shawn Dean, really nice, they give me my pass. The extras change in the shower where the women were. I’m sitting around, waiting, I really want to meet Tony (Khan). That’s the thing. The match is cool, but I want to meet Tony because of the coaching job. The first person I see is Bunny. I say hi. She looked at me, ‘What are you doing here?’ ‘I’m hoping to get something.’ She goes away, comes back a bit later, and asks me the same question. ‘I hope to have a coaching job.’ It’s a little chaotic, people are running around. I go into the ladies locker room, and silence. There is Ruby, Bunny, and Toni (Storm) sitting together on one side. They look at me, no words, and it feels really weird. I see Mercedes Martinez, happy to see me. Jade (Cargill) is doing her thing. The young girls…everyone is separated. I get the same question, ‘What are you doing here?’ ‘I got called to be an extra and meet with Tony.’ From there, I don’t know. It doesn’t feel good right away. I see QT, ‘when am I going to meet [Tony]?’ ‘I don’t know, he’s busy. Walk around, mingle.’ I’m walking around, I’m watching Bryan Danielson teach Jade. A newish wrestler, she comes to see me, ‘Oh my God, you’re here, I want to wrestle, are you staying?’ ‘I don’t know.’ ‘I’m going to ask the agents if you’re going to wrestle me.’ Another one comes to see me, ‘Oh my God, you’re here, please tell me you’re here to stay.’ ‘Wow, is it that bad?’ She’s like [makes face] like ‘we need you.’ Then I’m starting to kind of put things together. Thunder Rosa is sitting on one side, no one is talking to her. One guy goes to talk to her. I don’t know if it was an agent, I couldn’t see from afar. Everybody is in their own thing. It’s weird, but I’m not used to this environment. I’m waiting, no Tony, nothing. I go backstage, I walk around, meet Christian, very nice. I talk to Mark Henry. I meet Dustin [Rhodes] and he’s talking to me about where I trained and his daughter. By this time, it’s really late. It’s almost 5. I go see Mercedes, ‘Do we know what we’re doing? What’s going on?’ She’s like, ‘We always know at the last minute.’ Time goes by, I see the card, and the first wrestler who said they wanted to wrestle me, she said, ‘they won’t let me.’ ‘That sucks,’ because I really like her. I end up in the six-woman and they keep cutting our time. I see people complaining everywhere because they’re not on the card. They came to Boston, they’re not wrestling. It’s really chaotic. I hear something about CM Punk, but I saw him at catering, he was doing really nice and he was nice to me. It feels like high school. There is no unity, for some reason. They tell me I’m going to have an entrance. I thought, as an extra, I would not. I run to my car, get my jacket, go back in.”
– LuFisto a été stupéfaite d’entendre Dustin Rhodes dénigrer les Canadiens français, citant sa mauvaise expérience avec Jacques Rougeau. Evil Uno a lui-même rappelé qu’il était Canaadien français. Elle affirme adorer Rhodes, mais se demande vraiment pourquoi il a été aussi cinglant.
“I go to the restroom. As I open the door, I hear, ‘She something something.’ I open the door and on the table, Ruby Soho is sitting with Dustin [Rhodes] and they just shut (up) and they look at me. ‘Okay, they were talking about me, that’s for sure.’ [Ruby is] like, ‘I have to go.’ I go to Dustin and he goes, ‘So, all French Canadian people are fucking assholes eh?’ I’m like, ‘Excuse me, what?’ He was nice to me five minutes ago. He’s like, ‘Yeah, apparently that’s the way it goes.’ I have a very bad relationship with Jacques Rougeau. I can say he was even abusive to me, calling me to tell me I was fat and to lose weight. I’m like, ‘maybe he had a bad experience with Jacques too?’ He’s looking at me differently and the funny thing is, [Evil Uno] walks by and he’s like, ‘Hey, Uno, that’s true French Canadians are fucking assholes, right?’ Uno is like, ‘I’m French Canadian.’ ‘Oh, okay.’ They talk a little bit. I’m there, but I just leave. I’m like, ‘what the fuck just happened?’ I love Dustin. I even wrote him messages, thanking him for the Keep Stepping thing, because it was very inspiring. I’m like, ‘What the fuck just happened?'”
– LuFisto est revenue sur son match, soutenant que Dustin Rhodes a été très critique à son endroit.
“We go backstage and they all keep going. Dustin is right there and is like, ‘What did you do?’ ‘What do you mean?’ ‘You made all those girls that are signed when you’re not look really bad. It was terrible.’ ‘Okay, details?’ ‘You should have bumped on everything they did.’ I’m like, ‘everything they planned was for me to sell to the next for the other to sell to the tag for me to give a clothesline, tag out, and only tag back in.’ I have 40 seconds in there. ‘Sir, can you please give me details on what I should have done better so I don’t repeat it?’ ‘When Anna Jay biffed you on the apron, you should have fallen outside.’ Now I’m like, ‘Thank you, sir. I see.’ Of course, everyone else left. No one is there when he’s giving me this criticism. Billy Gunn is nearby. I look around and am like, ‘can someone else tell me that I suck this bad? I need another opinion.’ He was looking at me like I was disgusting. Now I’m like, ‘they told me to stay on the fucking apron.’ The thing that I was thinking about was, there were a few girls that told me they had matches with Britt Baker where they would go in the ring and they would change the match completely or, if the girl forgot something, she would go, ‘where are we?’ Silence. Of course, the match would look bad, they would never be called again and they got stiffed as well. They didn’t want to stiff me, but they made sure, to at least an agent, I looked like a fucking idiot. I went around and asked some guys, ‘did you watch the match?’ One of them told me, ‘I did not, but I will.’
– LuFisto espérait rencontrer Tony Khan, mais on lui a mentionné qu’il était trop occupé. Elle déplore aussi le manque de communication avec la AEW, ayant été par la suite «oubliée», alors qu’elle espérait réellement s’impliquer au sein de la compagnie.
“Apparently, he was busy or something. A few days after, I email QT to see what’s going on and if I could have comment. The wrestler that told me they would watch the match actually wrote, ‘The match was okay, it wasn’t something great, but I think it went well.’ I’m thinking, ‘Apparently I was the absolute shit and I don’t know what I’m doing.’ He’s like, ‘I don’t know why you didn’t pin after the clothesline.’ ‘I was told not to.’ Then I literally told him, ‘Sorry, not that I want to throw somebody under the bus. I knew I was not signed at all and the other girls were.’ He’s like, ‘You didn’t have the opportunity to show what you can do.’ ‘Do you think the finish looked bad because I was staying in there?’ ‘No, if I want to nitpick, maybe, but it’s not bad.’ After that, I’m having trouble getting paid. The show is in April. I was able to get it in July and that’s after I asked Dean, I asked QT, I asked another woman. They were like, ‘We send it by mail but there is a thing about the Canadian address.’ I looked at my W9. Everything was okay, but I was like, ‘Why the hell did nobody ask me about my work visa? I have a work visa and nobody asked me.’ I give them my PayPal. ‘Oh, we sent it,’ and it’s not working. ‘Another promoter just sent me money and it’s working. The lady was upset, and finally I got it. After that, I tried to reach out to QT, never answered me. I tried to reach out to Dean, never answered me. When they came to Canada I was like, let’s try this. I sent a message, ‘Hey, I’d like to be an extra in Canada.’ Completely ghosted me whether it’s phone, Twitter, email. Not even an answer, a no, nothing. It’s a long story to explain how it went for me, but the thing that got me mad with the booking is, there is no structure, the booking is all over the place. The problem at AEW is there is a structure of power.”
– LuFisto crout que les lutteuses devraient s’entraider et non se disputer ou s’insulter. De manière générale, elle croit que la AEW des problèmes de structure. Et elle espère que la lutte féminine soit mieux valorisée et encadrée au sein de la AEW, ajoutant qu’il y a beaucoup de talent au sein de cette compagnie.
“I’m telling my story and my experience for people to understand that the reason why this division doesn’t work is the gatekeeping of it. It’s not going to get any better as long as somebody doesn’t stand up. Everybody is afraid to talk. Everybody doesn’t want to say what I’m saying right now. I’m even struggling right now, but someone has to say it. Unfortunately, it’s the 43-year-old that’s doing it because everybody is so afraid to lose their freaking jobs that they don’t say anything and they accept things that should not be. Somebody has a tryout and you make sure they look bad? I’m not even talking about myself because I didn’t look that bad. I was told following discussions, some girls are asking for guidance and ‘make sure they look bad so they don’t come back because there is genuine interest in them.’ The girls fighting with each other. I hear it all the time. My ship has sailed, I’m aware of that. One thing though, I love wrestling with all my heart, so if somebody wants to say I’m bitter, I say, ‘Fuck you.’ I go out there every weekend, I love what I do, I’ve been to court to defend women’s wrestling. The thing that I do not accept, and it’s what’s going on at AEW right now, women are shitting on women when we should be helping each other and lifting each other up. If you’re not good enough to be out there and prove you can go and you have to go through politics and people you’re with, you don’t belong in the sport. Right now, it’s filled with people who use wrestling to have that fame. The ones that really fought hard for women to be seen as athletes, that we work together. One of the problems, men are in charge of the women’s division. I’ll be honest, they don’t care. They will put their friends in spots before the women. If you stay up there because you’re in your comfort zone, it’s not going to change. You need to stand up, you need to speak your mind. Do it politely, but you can’t have people running the whole thing with their friends, with their clique, and expect women’s wrestling to change and people give it time so it matters. It’s not going to change if you don’t have people who are passionate about what women’s wrestling should be when it’s just the people who are out there who want to be there and have a certain power and it doesn’t go with what is the best product you can put up. When you look at the talent they have, in and out of the ring.
“You have Jerry Lynn, Christopher Daniels, Chris Hero, Sarah Stock, Leyla Hirsch, Kris Statlander, Jamie Hayter. There is so much talent. Why is it not working? It’s not a question of booking because if a wrestler is good and passionate, they make chicken salad out of chicken shit. I always think about Dusty Rhodes and the polka dots. He made that work. Mizdow could’ve been terrible, but he got himself over, embracing it. Not telling them what to do. You work with strengths, weaknesses, you work together. You, as the veteran, don’t go, ‘you’re going to do this, you’re going to do this. That’s the way it works here.’ I know I’m going back and forth between so many things, but it shows how chaotic it is. There are so many little problems. Yes, it’s booking related. Yes, it’s someone that doesn’t put their pants on and say, ‘You are talent, give me your ideas, I want to work with you. Don’t tell me what to do, I’m the boss, I pay out.’ If there is something you don’t want to do and are not comfortable, never push your talent to do something they are not comfortable doing, wrestling someone they don’t want to. That’s creating more problems, injuries, and they’re not going to have a good product on TV. You want things to work. If it means this person, this person, and this person creates problems, fire them. You have 60 women who want to be on top and want to give you good matches. You’re not using them because you have that core that wants to stay there and will do everything they want to stay there.”
Elle a également parlé de sa rencontre décevante avec Ruby Soho, en plus de souligner que Tony Khan est un vrai passionné de la lutte mais qu’il doit être mieux entouré.
L’entrevue complète peut être vue ICI.
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