With everything going on in WWE right now, the differences between AEW and the latter are quite easy to point out, even for fans merely watching it all transpire online or perhaps even on TV.
For a pro wrestling journalist, those of us who have to dig to get to the facts, the differences between both companies shine through in our findings often enough.
But for employees and/or wrestlers that have worked for both camps, the differences between how the day to day is run, is a heck of a lot easier to distinguish. Enter Mercedes Martinez.
via SHIMMER Women Athletes /YouTube
While speaking with the Complex Unsanctioned Podcast, she went into some major differences, but specifically a major difference, between Vice President, founder, co-owner and CEO of All Elite Wrestling, and upper management in WWE. Here’s some of what she had to say:
“I can text him, I can message him whenever I want…If I have ideas or anything, he’s as accessible as he can be…that’s a big difference going from WWE to here…
He’s the boss, he’s the man, he’s the one that makes the decisions, and the fact that he listens to you and your concerns and whatever you have for creative…I love that creative freedom you have to tell your story where you see fit…”
via Mercedes Martinez on the Complex Unsanctioned Podcast /Wrestling Inc. (Transcription)
So Martinez does admit to some ‘squabbles’ backstage in AEW—as it pertains specifically to the women’s portion of the roster—perhaps just as many as there were in WWE, but the way they are handled seems to be a lot more up her alley, so to speak…perhaps through much more communication with the CEO himself, as is alluded to here in her statements. She does state that most of the women in there are on the same page, especially for a seasoned veteran of the industry such as herself.
“At the end of the day, everyone’s there to make sure the women’s division is the best that it can be under restrictions that we have, we try to do our best as best as we can.”
via Mercedes Martinez on the Complex Unsanctioned Podcast /Wrestling Inc. (Transcription) – link above
She has made leaps and bounds form the opportunities she was getting in WWE, and despite her 2-plus decades in the business, she was given very little opportunity to shine as she most certainly deserves to back in WWE…so in the end the audience she gets with Tony Khan seems to have done wonders for her career and Tony in turn has gotten an epic performer to help catapult the women’s division only further in AEW.
Martinez is of course the current, reigning, defending ROH Women’s Champion.
