Alicia Atout discusses working with AEW, Cody Rhodes, AMBY and odd interactions (Exclusive)

Modified Oct 04, 2019 21:20 GMT

I mentioned that you've done Impact and AEW's Double or Nothing. How did both of those come about?

Yeah, when it comes to Impact, I was working a few local shows and one of them was called BCW, and that one is co-owned by Scott D'Amore, who is the EVP for Impact.

Then they started doing some co-pros with Impact Wrestling, so it got to a point where I was already in their eyes, already at their shows and they just brought me on for television after that. It was a very smooth transition and worked super well in that regard.

Once I was on TV with them, it was still really focusing on my YouTube channel, and I interviewed Cody Rhodes, the [Young] Bucks, Kenny Omega,, and we just kept in touch after those first few interviews, and they started to know me because of my YouTube channel and just seeing them at shows.

Once I realized, "Oh, wow, they are going to be doing ALL IN," I reached out and said, "Hey, if you need anyone, I happen to know somebody, wink, wink."

They brought me on for that and once the rumors for AEW came about, I did kind of the same thing. "Hey, guys, last time it worked out amazingly, I'm so thankful for the opportunity. If you need a backstage host, feel free to hit me up," and the next thing you know, backstage at Double or Nothing so it's all been very effortless and I've been very thankful for all the opportunities and the fact they came around super organically.

On that note, I do need to ask, will we be seeing more of you in All Elite Wrestling?

All I'm going to say, I get asked this all the time by so many fans every day, "When will Alicia be All Elite?" It's one of those things where I am speaking with the guys and it's a wait-and-see process, but fingers crossed, in the end, some really cool stuff will be coming up.

Hopefully, we will be seeing more of Alicia A - I believe you're called on AEW. Where did the decision come from to change your name?

That was directly from the brilliant mind of one Cody Rhodes.

Whenever we text, he will either call me AA or Alicia A, and so one time he just said, "Hey, you cool with the name Alicia A, by the way, for on-air?"

And I'm like, "I'm not going to say no to him," so we just rolled with it, I liked the ring of it and it sounds cool, it's different and I like that I can kind of have that moniker for AEW stuff and then just keep it to Alicia Atout with my stuff because backstage is fairly different from my casual, free-flowing interviews, so I really liked it when he pitched that to me, it was cool.