Brandi Rhodes Says She Designed the AEW Women’s Title
On a recent episode of Busted Open Radio, AEW Chief Branding Officer Brandi Rhodes spoke about the upcoming women’s title for the promotion, as well as the various issues she has had to deal with since gaining a position of power within the company. Here are highlights:
On if she’s had any issues with people being overly familiar, going straight to her for an issue instead of going up the chain of command: “That’s a loaded question for so many reasons because … it is a change, for sure. But I think a lot of times some of that falls on me, some of it falls on me being too familiar, me being too friendly and I think it’s a really thin line that you just have to learn how to navigate. I’ve learned, I think a lot in my life, Cody will tell you, definitely, that this is something he does not consider a strong point for me, is that once I’m burned, I’m burned hard and it takes a long time for me to move past it, no matter how small it may seem to someone else. It may be monumental to me. In those instances, I’m very careful with how I am with people because I don’t want to open them up to accidentally burning me and then seeing that side. A lot of times all of that falls on me, not anyone else. So I have to be careful with myself and what my expectations are and what my role entails and what that should mean to other people.”
On if she’s ever overwhelmed with how much she has to deal with: “I definitely can see how it can turn that way really quickly. I’m usually pretty proactive beforehand. Once I saw that other people were starting to use other people to help them and to kind of become their right hands, I picked my right hand really quickly. And I don’t think a lot of people know this, I don’t think it’s very public, my coordinator for the brand is Leva Bates. She works right with me on everything. So whenever I feel like I’m getting a little overwhelmed or I’ve got a little too much going on, I’m really comfortable just pulling Leva into whatever the project is and saying, ‘hey I’ve got to focus more on this project, I’m putting you in charge of this one.’ And she’s done a really great job. It’s been really easy to let go of some of that wanting to do everything all of the time and allowing Leva to step in and do some of the work.
On the AEW Women’s title: “So we’re really, really excited that we got to announce that at All Out we will be unveiling the [women’s] championship. Getting a little too far ahead to say we’ll be having a champion but the championship itself will definitely be there. I’ve had a hand in working on the design of the championship and it is unique. It has something about it that has never been done before, that’s all I can say about it. What’s surprising to me when I was working with Rico, who is designing it, is I said, ‘Hey, what if we do this?’ And he says, ‘You know what? We’ve never done that before!’ Which is a really good thing. Because that’s going to make your thing unique. I’m looking forward to showing that off to everyone, and hopefully everyone is as excited about it as we all are. But yes the girls are extremely excited. You enter into this and you know that there’s going to be a championship and you know there’s going to be a goal to try to obtain and actually hear the words and see it. It’s real. So the girls are really excited.”
