Back in November Big Swole announced that her contract with AEW was set to be ending, and that both sides had agreed not to renew her contract.
Following her departure from the company, Swole would go on to state that “her heart just stopped being in it.” She would also question the structure of AEW, and stated that within the company “there is no representation, truly, and when there is it doesn’t come across in the black community as genuine.”
On new years eve, AEW President Tony Khan would take to Twitter to respond to Swole’s comments. In the tweet, Khan would go on to name many of AEW’s talents and execs who are people of color. He would then say that he let Swole’s contract expire as he thought “her wrestling wasn’t good enough for AEW”.
These comments led to plenty of backlash towards Khan. AEW talents including Will Hobbs and Captain Shawn Dean would come to bat for Khan.
On her latest Call In Show , Swole would respond to the comments and says her initial response to Khan’s message was disbelief followed by disappointment.
“When I read the TK tweet, it was, not necessarily sent to me, but I got a text message saying, ‘Do not respond to him, it’s not worth it.’ At that time, I was already a little zooted because it was about to be New Year’s. I looked at it and I was like, ‘Wow, this is a lot,”” Swole said.
“Overall, I’m very disappointed. A person with that pedigree should know how to respond in a way that doesn’t come off in the most negative way possible,” she continued.
“I was very disappointed. Embarrassed, even. Embarrassed for the people that are there. I really couldn’t believe it. Did he even listen to the podcast? Obviously not because it went completely off the rails. You went completely to counting brown people. If was truly about counting brown people, I would be naming certain demographics.”
Swole would go on to state that she has yet to receive any apology from Khan and says their has been no communication between the two.
“To answer everybody’s question. No, there’s been no apology. There’s been no contact or anything and I don’t think there will be. I feel like, maybe he feels he said nothing wrong. At all. Maybe he felt he had to send out the performative people with their tweets trying to negate my own experience with their own experience because that’s exactly what it is because I’m sharing mine, then you come around to share yours in a way that you dig at me in the middle of it.”
“How sincere is that? Would you have shared anything if I said nothing? Would you have spoken up about how wonderful it is in your spots? Diversity isn’t spots, sweetheart. Okay? It’s not. It’s performative at this point.”
“Sharing your experience does not negate anybody else’s experience. You have a right to share how you feel and what you’ve experienced and what you see. That has nothing to do with anyone else. It only has to do with yourself and how you feel.”
(H/T Fightful for quotes.)
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