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AEW's AUBREY EDWARDS · Caught on the Mike...

• 0:00
  SPEAKER_01: Disclaimer, the views and opinions expressed in this program are those of the speakers and do not necessarily reflect the views or positions of any entities they represent.
• 0:11
  SPEAKER_01: Listener discretion is advised.
• 0:26
  SPEAKER_01: Founded in 2019, and with the fans and talent of the organization at the steering wheel, All Elite Wrestling has made a massive impact on the pro wrestling industry.
• 0:39
  SPEAKER_01: Many of the personalities that make up AEW have several irons in the fire as far as their interest range goes and career paths in and outside of the industry.
• 0:52
  SPEAKER_01: Joining me today is one of those personalities.
• 0:55
  SPEAKER_01: She's a referee, a game developer, a project manager for AEW, Aubrey Edwards.
• 1:02
  SPEAKER_01: And we talk a little bit about everything, including the funny way in which we got connected.
• 1:09
  SPEAKER_01: Ladies and gentlemen, this is Caught on the Mike.
• 1:16
  SPEAKER_01: I don't know if I've met any other person that wears as many hats in as many different areas.
• 1:24
  SPEAKER_01: Literally and figuratively.
• 1:25
  SPEAKER_01: Yes! As my next guest, AEW's Aubrey Edwards.
• 1:31
  SPEAKER_01: You may know her as a professional wrestling referee, but she's also a video game developer.
• 1:37
  SPEAKER_01: She did ballet.
• 1:38
  SPEAKER_01: She is a podcaster, a project manager.
• 1:42
  SPEAKER_01: What is it that you don't do?
• 1:43
  SPEAKER_01: Because I think that list is probably a little bit shorter.
• 1:46
  SPEAKER_00: I have no experience in tap dancing.
• 1:50
  SPEAKER_01: Are you sure about that?
• 1:51
  SPEAKER_01: We just got done talking and you told me a story.
• 1:53
  SPEAKER_01: It sounded like you socially tap danced a little bit.
• 1:56
  SPEAKER_00: Socially, yes, but I never quite understood the actual mechanics.
• 1:59
  SPEAKER_00: And it's like it's so offbeat in my head, so I had always had a hard time picking it up.
• 2:03
  SPEAKER_00: But ballet, I did that for 22 years.
• 2:05
  SPEAKER_00: Tab dancing, I never got into.
• 2:07
  SPEAKER_01: So I gotta be honest, I was sitting at a blood bank donating blood the other day.
• 2:12
  SPEAKER_01: I was listening to Renee's podcast, and you guys went on about Taco Bell for a good 15 minutes, and it was amazing.
• 2:25
  SPEAKER_01: So, what is it that you love about podcasting in particular?
• 2:29
  SPEAKER_01: Is it that off-the-wall element to where you can go in the left field and have conversations about nothing but still be entertaining?
• 2:37
  SPEAKER_00: So, just to provide a little context, uh, I co-host a podcast called AEW Unrestricted.
• 2:42
  SPEAKER_00: It's the official podcast of all Elite Wrestling, new episodes every Thursday.
• 2:45
  SPEAKER_00: I co-host it alongside Will Washington, who's one of the guys that helps with the creative for the show.
• 2:50
  SPEAKER_00: So he's sort of more of a backstage role.
• 2:52
  SPEAKER_00: And then I'm more of an on-screen role.
• 2:54
  SPEAKER_00: So it's really great because we have that mix of perspectives for something that is wrestling.
• 3:00
  SPEAKER_00: And a lot of really hardcore wrestling fans, we all know it is predetermined.
• 3:04
  SPEAKER_00: We all know that it's story, that it's media, that it's theater.
• 3:08
  SPEAKER_00: So the really hardcore fans really always want to know just a little bit more than what they're seeing on camera.
• 3:14
  SPEAKER_00: So it's a really great way for us to not only promote the company through a different medium than we already have, but also to just have fun conversations with your coworkers that also engage your fans in a new and interesting way.
• 3:27
  SPEAKER_00: So, like you're saying, like the Taco Bell thing, for instance, I actually told a story to Will on the podcast recently where I got a Taco Bell tattoo at one of the pay-per-views.
• 3:35
  SPEAKER_00: And just purely because like me and my sister wanted them, and then Nila was like, I want to get in on that.
• 3:41
  SPEAKER_00: And like, so there's like four of us going to get tattoos out of nowhere.
• 3:45
  SPEAKER_00: And it's just like it's fun little interesting tid tidbits that like don't actually help any on-screen storyline move forward, but it helps the fans feel like they're more invested in something.
• 3:55
  SPEAKER_01: But isn't that kind of the spider web of pro wrestling in general?
• 3:59
  SPEAKER_01: Is the convergence of so many different communities.
• 4:02
  SPEAKER_01: I have a lot of friends that have been indie wrestlers and they're also musicians and stand-up comics, and they're playing Magic the Gathering every single Sunday.
• 4:13
  SPEAKER_01: It's crazy how like pro wrestling brings all these different interest groups together.
• 4:19
  SPEAKER_00: It really is.
• 4:20
  SPEAKER_00: And like my my background, before I ever joined wrestling, I was a professional video game developer for 10 years.
• 4:26
  SPEAKER_00: I've shipped six titles before I ever stepped foot in a ring.
• 4:29
  SPEAKER_00: So I'm a bit of a nerd.
• 4:31
  SPEAKER_00: I'm by trade a computer scientist.
• 4:33
  SPEAKER_00: So like I've I've done all of that.
• 4:35
  SPEAKER_00: But as you said, like we have comedians.
• 4:37
  SPEAKER_00: We have Ryan Nemeth who's doing like a little bit of a comedy tour right now.
• 4:40
  SPEAKER_00: We have musicians, like Jericho's the frontman for this little band called Fozzie.
• 4:44
  SPEAKER_00: Right.
• 4:44
  SPEAKER_00: We also have other guys like Andy Williams, the butcher, who uh was the frontman for Every Day That I Die.
• 4:50
  SPEAKER_00: So it's it's there's so much going on.
• 4:53
  SPEAKER_00: It kind of comes back to what I was saying before is that what drove me to professional wrestling, and I think what draws a lot of people to it is the idea that sure we're on-screen people, but because this is such a unique art form, we sort of get to portray a little bit more of ourselves in our characters and however much we choose to.
• 5:12
  SPEAKER_00: So even though I'm Aubrey Edwards AEW official on TV, what I do behind the scenes kind of does play into that because I can't be Aubrey on TV without also sort of being true to myself.
• 5:24
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, that makes a lot of sense.
• 5:26
  SPEAKER_01: And since you brought it up, let's get into your origin story on how you got into wrestling and where your interests started with it.
• 5:34
  SPEAKER_00: Oh boy.
• 5:35
  SPEAKER_00: Um, I have a very interesting story in the sense that it is not the typical one.
• 5:40
  SPEAKER_00: A lot of people watch wrestling when they were kids and then they fell out of it, and then they got back into it.
• 5:44
  SPEAKER_00: I did not watch wrestling uh until my uh my mid-20s.
• 5:50
  SPEAKER_00: Uh, I had a couple friends who wanted to watch WrestleMania that year, and I'm like, this could be fun, and I have just literally no idea what's going on on TV.
• 5:57
  SPEAKER_00: And there were a number of people that I got super interested in.
• 6:01
  SPEAKER_00: Uh, big one, of course, was Brian Danielson, who is from Washington.
• 6:05
  SPEAKER_00: So that was part of the reason that I was drawn to him.
• 6:08
  SPEAKER_00: I was like, oh, he's from Aberdeen.
• 6:09
  SPEAKER_00: I'm from Seattle.
• 6:10
  SPEAKER_00: This is great.
• 6:11
  SPEAKER_00: And he looks like a lumberjack.
• 6:13
  SPEAKER_00: This is awesome.
• 6:14
  SPEAKER_00: Uh, and just seeing like his rise to WrestleMania 30 was so cool.
• 6:18
  SPEAKER_00: Uh, being there front row for his retirement at Climate Pledge Arena was just insane at the time, Key Arena.
• 6:24
  SPEAKER_00: Um, so it's it's like I immediately felt this connection because I knew that there was a person portraying the character on screen.
• 6:32
  SPEAKER_00: And I'm very much, if you can't tell by like all of my job descriptions, I'm a very much like 100% go all into it type of person.
• 6:40
  SPEAKER_00: So as soon as I got into wrestling, I was in it deep.
• 6:42
  SPEAKER_00: I was watching Ring of Honor, I was watching Indies, I was traveling to shows, I was doing everything.
• 6:47
  SPEAKER_00: But I was more than content being a fan.
• 6:50
  SPEAKER_00: And as I mentioned, I was a ballet dancer.
• 6:53
  SPEAKER_00: I danced uh classical ballet for about 22 years, and it's very hard on your body.
• 6:59
  SPEAKER_00: So I was roughly like 30 years old and I decided it was about time to stop dancing.
• 7:05
  SPEAKER_00: And right around that time, a couple friends of mine who worked at our local indie show said, Hey, have you ever considered roughing?
• 7:11
  SPEAKER_00: I said, Why would I do that?
• 7:12
  SPEAKER_00: That's silly.
• 7:14
  SPEAKER_00: And they really pushed me to try it.
• 7:16
  SPEAKER_00: I gave it a shot.
• 7:17
  SPEAKER_00: I was terrible the first time.
• 7:19
  SPEAKER_00: I cried in my car after because it was just so uncomfortable and awkward.
• 7:23
  SPEAKER_00: Tried it again, it was way less awkward and more fun.
• 7:25
  SPEAKER_00: And then a year later I had a tryout at WWE.
• 7:28
  SPEAKER_00: A year after that, I was at AEW.
• 7:30
  SPEAKER_01: Wow.
• 7:31
  SPEAKER_01: That's fast.
• 7:33
  SPEAKER_01: That's amazing.
• 7:34
  SPEAKER_01: As a wrestling fan, or now being a fan, it hasn't really been that long because you're you're not that old.
• 7:41
  SPEAKER_01: No.
• 7:43
  SPEAKER_01: But do you notice that pro wrestling kind of has these every five to ten year renaissances where it's like it has this big boom and then it has like these little subtle booms in between, if that makes sense, where it becomes a larger part of the pop culture lexicon for a short period of time.
• 8:02
  SPEAKER_01: It kind of tapers off and then it booms again.
• 8:05
  SPEAKER_01: Have you ever noticed that?
• 8:06
  SPEAKER_01: And what do you think might be the cause of that?
• 8:10
  SPEAKER_00: I think a lot of it probably has to do with just the given landscape and the current talent.
• 8:14
  SPEAKER_00: Like just to bring it back to AEW as a great example.
• 8:18
  SPEAKER_00: Five years ago we had just started uh and now we're selling out Wembley Stadium, 80,000 plus uh tickets sold.
• 8:26
  SPEAKER_00: It's insane.
• 8:27
  SPEAKER_00: And funny enough, that's a five-year span.
• 8:30
  SPEAKER_00: So it's I think it's just a general progression of things.
• 8:34
  SPEAKER_00: It's everything sort of gets reinvented.
• 8:37
  SPEAKER_00: There's a lot of things we're seeing today that people may not realize is something that we've seen in wrestling before.
• 8:42
  SPEAKER_00: It's just the reimagined 2023 version.
• 8:44
  SPEAKER_00: Uh, we're seeing new talent come through, and new talent takes time to grow and connect with the audience.
• 8:50
  SPEAKER_00: And then by the time that they do, now we've got even newer talent coming in, and then they get to be built up.
• 8:55
  SPEAKER_00: So it's always sort of this uh kind of ebb and flow, I would say, of something happens and then we get to see the product kind of grow, and then it grows and changes.
• 9:06
  SPEAKER_00: And sure, you can take various different slices of time and say, this was a really awesome opportunity, and this is a really awesome thing that happened.
• 9:12
  SPEAKER_00: But I think that's honestly one of the things that really draws me to pro wrestling is unlike any sort of episodic TV show, you get you get so um you get so much reward for your long-term investment, right?
• 9:27
  SPEAKER_00: That you get to see the growth of a company over that period of time, whether it's one year, two years, five years, ten years, twenty years, whatever it might be.
• 9:33
  SPEAKER_00: You get to see talent grow from being someone who, you know, loses two-minute matches to carries uh world championships.
• 9:41
  SPEAKER_00: And you get to be invested in part of it and be a part of the story.
• 9:44
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 9:45
  SPEAKER_01: And the reason I make that five to ten year observation is because I'm kind of looking at my own fandom of like when I was first exposed to it, and now I'm gonna reveal my age, uh, you know, one of the first WrestleManias, and then and then five years later it's when the mega powers collide, and then five years later is the the advent of the Monday Night Wars, and so on and so on and so on.
• 10:10
  SPEAKER_01: So it is almost like a collegiate experience to a certain extent, where guys and girls are starting college and then they're finishing college and kind of passing the torch to the next people in line.
• 10:21
  SPEAKER_01: So your experience with AEW thus far uh in August of 2019 on All Out, you were the first woman ref of a pro wrestling match on a pay-per-view making history.
• 10:36
  SPEAKER_00: Not not quite, if I can just clarify that real quick.
• 10:39
  SPEAKER_00: Why is that first woman?
• 10:42
  SPEAKER_00: I just I want to give credit where it's due because there's a lot of people that created opportunities for me, and I just want to make sure that like that and being someone who is a woman in a male-dominated sport, I don't want to take credit for something that I didn't actually do.
• 10:57
  SPEAKER_00: I want to take credit for the things that I did do so that when other women come in behind me, they can do cool things and they can take credit for those things.
• 11:03
  SPEAKER_00: Amazing.
• 11:04
  SPEAKER_00: So technically, the title that I hold is I am the first woman to officiate a main event title match on pay-per-view.
• 11:10
  SPEAKER_01: Gotcha.
• 11:11
  SPEAKER_01: Gotcha.
• 11:12
  SPEAKER_01: See, and you see how it gets the telephone game happens the more and more and more.
• 11:19
  SPEAKER_00: Yes.
• 11:20
  SPEAKER_00: It's also because I'm not allowed to edit my own Wikipedia.
• 11:23
  SPEAKER_00: Or I would just go in and change it myself and it would just solve all the problems.
• 11:27
  SPEAKER_01: But instead, it's not just on Wikipedia, it's all over the place.
• 11:31
  SPEAKER_00: No, it's because other people quote Wikipedia as a source of truth, and it says I was born in Seattle, and it's absolutely false.
• 11:38
  SPEAKER_01: Okay, so let's let's take that historical moment and put it into perspective, though.
• 11:45
  SPEAKER_01: What meant more to you?
• 11:47
  SPEAKER_01: That moment, or getting to put Chris Jericho in his place during that moment?
• 11:54
  SPEAKER_00: Uh, I mean, the whole thing is kind of a blur to be perfectly honest.
• 11:58
  SPEAKER_00: So, so just for some some full context of like what that day was like, I technically did not start my full-time contract until the next day.
• 12:06
  SPEAKER_00: So on that day, I was not a full-time employee of AEW.
• 12:10
  SPEAKER_00: I had also found out I was doing the match, uh, I think roughly after Fighter Fest in June.
• 12:18
  SPEAKER_00: So I had known for a long time and kind of couldn't really tell anybody.
• 12:21
  SPEAKER_00: So it's one of those like when you know a secret and it's a big deal and it's freaking you out, but you don't have anyone that you can kind of like actually share it with.
• 12:30
  SPEAKER_00: Um, so there's that.
• 12:31
  SPEAKER_00: We have Dean Malinko as the coach assigned to the match.
• 12:34
  SPEAKER_00: So now I'm working with this absolute, you know, technical mastermind legend.
• 12:38
  SPEAKER_00: We have Jericho, who I have a great relationship now, but at the time, like I didn't know who he was.
• 12:42
  SPEAKER_00: We have Hangman, who's clearly, you know, someone that is very pivotal to AEW and what AEW stands for.
• 12:48
  SPEAKER_00: So there's all of these really important things.
• 12:51
  SPEAKER_00: And the whole thing, I'm just like, just don't screw up, just don't screw up, just don't screw up, just don't screw up the whole time.
• 12:57
  SPEAKER_00: And a lot of like, and I love Chris.
• 13:00
  SPEAKER_00: I love Chris Jericho, he's given me so many opportunities.
• 13:03
  SPEAKER_00: A lot of times when we have those moments of like where he kind of gets in my face and then I get in his face as a result, a lot of those are in the moment.
• 13:13
  SPEAKER_00: We maybe talk about it ahead of time, but I'd say more and more as we go on, that's all just sort of what we're feeling in a given period of time.
• 13:20
  SPEAKER_00: So to have someone who is, you know, first ballot hall of famer tell you, shove me, I'm just like, Wait, what?
• 13:31
  SPEAKER_00: And then I shove him and he goes, more.
• 13:33
  SPEAKER_00: And I'm like, oh god.
• 13:36
  SPEAKER_00: Because it's it's one of those things where as a referee, my job is to help tell a story.
• 13:40
  SPEAKER_00: It's not my story to tell, it's someone else's.
• 13:43
  SPEAKER_00: And I never want to feel like I'm doing too much to take away what they're trying to do.
• 13:47
  SPEAKER_00: I want to hit their artistic vision.
• 13:49
  SPEAKER_00: So now that we sort of work together all the time, like at the time of this recording, I literally worked with him last night.
• 13:54
  SPEAKER_00: And it's like almost like I would say a hundred matches at this point.
• 13:58
  SPEAKER_00: I've worked with Chris, and it's just so terrifying.
• 14:03
  SPEAKER_00: Literally two years into my career, and I'm like, oh my god, this is happening.
• 14:06
  SPEAKER_00: So that's how I felt.
• 14:08
  SPEAKER_01: That's amazing.
• 14:09
  SPEAKER_01: Tying all of this together is AEW heals.
• 14:13
  SPEAKER_01: Ah, yes.
• 14:14
  SPEAKER_01: I would love for you to share the whole background about that because there is a large community of women that are pro-wrestling fans, and I love the whole concept behind it.
• 14:26
  SPEAKER_01: Why don't you share that a little bit?
• 14:27
  SPEAKER_00: So, as we all know, uh wrestling is a very male-dominated sport, both on screen and in fandom.
• 14:33
  SPEAKER_00: A big part of our market is males 18 to 34.
• 14:36
  SPEAKER_00: But as with all businesses, we want to grow and reach out to other markets because there's just so much more spending power, right?
• 14:43
  SPEAKER_00: If you only focus on one market, your business is only going to grow so much.
• 14:47
  SPEAKER_00: From a more personal standpoint, and as I mentioned, there's not a lot of women in stripes.
• 14:53
  SPEAKER_00: There's literally four at the highest level, and I'm the only one at AEW.
• 14:58
  SPEAKER_00: The hope is that that changes over time, but I'm literally like bleeding my knuckles from punching holes in the ceiling with a lot of the stuff that I've done.
• 15:07
  SPEAKER_00: So it's hard to connect with a product when there's not a lot of people on screen that look like you.
• 15:13
  SPEAKER_00: So, what we've done with AEW Heels was we've sort of created a space where female identifying wrestling fans can come together to find other female identifying wrestling fans.
• 15:22
  SPEAKER_00: So they can share in what they see on screen, talk about the things they like and whatnot, but also not feel pressured to prove their fandom.
• 15:30
  SPEAKER_00: We talk a lot, especially in comics and movies and things that are sort of more nerd culture about this concept of gatekeeping.
• 15:36
  SPEAKER_01: Yes.
• 15:37
  SPEAKER_00: Where you are told, oh, well, I'm a wrestling fan, and then someone says, Okay, well, who won the main event of SummerSlam in 1986 and what city was it in?
• 15:44
  SPEAKER_00: And if you don't know, then clearly you're a air quotes fake fan.
• 15:48
  SPEAKER_00: So what we're trying to do is say, you don't have to prove you're a wrestling fan.
• 15:52
  SPEAKER_00: If you say you're a wrestling fan, we believe you.
• 15:54
  SPEAKER_00: Whether today was the first day you've watched, whether you've watched your entire life, it does not matter, you are not judged.
• 16:00
  SPEAKER_00: And we find that a lot more women continue to watch the product and feel invested in the product because they're seeing more people like them on screen, they're seeing more people like them in the crowd, they have people they can connect with and talk about the things that they like.
• 16:14
  SPEAKER_00: And it's just an overall great space for people to realize that being a wrestling fan is cool.
• 16:19
  SPEAKER_00: It's not something you should be embarrassed about or hide from people, it's something that you should wear proudly.
• 16:24
  SPEAKER_00: And that's I think what one of the things that AEW Heels has done is it's created a space where women can talk about wrestling without fear of judgment.
• 16:32
  SPEAKER_01: I love that.
• 16:34
  SPEAKER_01: Absolutely love that.
• 16:37
  SPEAKER_01: We're getting close to our time coming to a close.
• 16:42
  SPEAKER_01: I know this has been amazing.
• 16:44
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, like, hold on, hold on.
• 16:45
  SPEAKER_00: Just a pause for a second.
• 16:46
  SPEAKER_00: Can we tell the story about how we didn't know?
• 16:48
  SPEAKER_01: I was that's what I was just about to bring up.
• 16:51
  SPEAKER_01: Okay, I think it's time we tell the story about how we're connected.
• 16:54
  SPEAKER_00: Okay, so I was at the iDoctor the other day, and I've been seeing uh Dr.
• 16:59
  SPEAKER_00: Jones for years, uh, prior to even my LASIK, and just going in for my normal checkup, and she doesn't know anything about wrestling.
• 17:06
  SPEAKER_00: No, but she's real nice, right?
• 17:08
  SPEAKER_00: She says, Hey, are you still doing that wrestling thing?
• 17:12
  SPEAKER_00: How is that going?
• 17:13
  SPEAKER_00: And I'm making like normal chit chat, like, oh yeah, I was in uh I think Pennsylvania next week.
• 17:18
  SPEAKER_00: I think I'm going to Kentucky.
• 17:20
  SPEAKER_00: This like I literally didn't know.
• 17:21
  SPEAKER_00: Like when we started this, you asked me where I was, and I paused and I had to look out a window.
• 17:25
  SPEAKER_00: It's literally my life.
• 17:26
  SPEAKER_00: I'm on the road 200 days a year.
• 17:28
  SPEAKER_00: So we're just making idle chit chat, and she says, Oh, yeah, I have someone in my family who hosts a podcast and they have uh like wrestlers on all the time.
• 17:35
  SPEAKER_00: I'm like, oh, what is it?
• 17:37
  SPEAKER_00: And she pulls up your website, and I was so impressed with the presentation that I said, hold on, let me help for a moment.
• 17:43
  SPEAKER_00: And I gave, I wrote down the media contact, my email, and my actual stage name, because my stage name and my real name are not the same.
• 17:51
  SPEAKER_00: And I was like, he may not know who this Britney person is, but he'll know who this Aubrey person is.
• 17:54
  SPEAKER_01: Right, right, right.
• 17:56
  SPEAKER_00: And I said, just take a picture of this, send it to him.
• 17:58
  SPEAKER_00: And within three hours, you had emailed me and said, So I think my sister-in-law is your optometrist.
• 18:05
  SPEAKER_00: And it was the most amazing intro to an email I've ever gotten.
• 18:10
  SPEAKER_01: That was intentional.
• 18:11
  SPEAKER_01: The comedic effect worked, obviously.
• 18:14
  SPEAKER_01: To be honest, you have the grand distinction of actually being the first pro wrestling associated guest I've had on my show.
• 18:21
  SPEAKER_00: I've had lots- Whoa, your sister's a liar.
• 18:24
  SPEAKER_01: No, I I I've had mostly UFC fighters on my show, and I've That's what I noticed, but I wasn't gonna tell Dr.
• 18:30
  SPEAKER_00: Jones in the moment, like, I think you're confusing what I do.
• 18:35
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, it's like it's all like half-naked men, and there's rule someone yelling rules all the time.
• 18:39
  SPEAKER_00: It's just a matter of how much is predetermined versus not.
• 18:43
  SPEAKER_01: What she probably was thinking about is I've been a pro wrestling fan my entire life.
• 18:47
  SPEAKER_01: I've got all of our kids into it.
• 18:50
  SPEAKER_01: Now, all of our kids are teenagers right now, so of course they're kind of doing the too cool for school thing, like getting together around the TV multiple nights a week isn't happening as frequently anymore.
• 19:02
  SPEAKER_01: But this has been amazing.
• 19:04
  SPEAKER_01: This has been such a great opportunity to connect.
• 19:07
  SPEAKER_01: I have one last question for you.
• 19:09
  SPEAKER_01: It's a question that I ask all of my guests, and it is my most favorite question because everybody answers in a very unique way.
• 19:18
  SPEAKER_01: What's your advice for making the world a better place tomorrow than what it is today?
• 19:23
  SPEAKER_00: Oh my God.
• 19:23
  SPEAKER_00: Okay, great question.
• 19:24
  SPEAKER_00: And actually something I've been thinking about a lot recently.
• 19:28
  SPEAKER_00: So, one of my goals in wrestling is to leave wrestling better than I found it, which is a very large and nebulous, unmeasurable thing.
• 19:37
  SPEAKER_00: So the general question that comes off of that is well, how do you do that?
• 19:40
  SPEAKER_00: And let me tell you what I'm currently doing.
• 19:43
  SPEAKER_00: Um, it's hard to change an entire industry as one person, but making small, measurable steps that help the greater good are fantastic.
• 19:52
  SPEAKER_00: So, one of the things that I'm currently doing is we have a fantastic ref team.
• 19:57
  SPEAKER_00: I I love our boys.
• 19:58
  SPEAKER_00: All six of them, they're freaking fantastic.
• 20:02
  SPEAKER_00: So we're trying to figure out ways that we as a ref team can grow and uh support each other and potentially make just our little portion of what we do at AEW better.
• 20:13
  SPEAKER_00: How that looks, you know, or what that is, it's very personal to us.
• 20:16
  SPEAKER_00: But if we can change even that one component and maybe tell someone else about it, maybe that spawns another conversation.
• 20:23
  SPEAKER_00: And it's those small, measurable changes over time that make big waves.
• 20:27
  SPEAKER_00: And maybe that's how and why we see those big changes every five years.
• 20:31
  SPEAKER_00: It's those little things that happen along the way that we may not have more insight to.
• 20:35
  SPEAKER_00: So that's what I'm trying to do right now is one, figure out how the hell I make wrestling better.
• 20:39
  SPEAKER_00: And two, actually do it.
• 20:41
  SPEAKER_01: Oh, that's great.
• 20:43
  SPEAKER_01: That's fantastic.
• 20:44
  SPEAKER_01: Aubrey, why don't you plug all of your stuff?
• 20:48
  SPEAKER_01: Where can people find you online?
• 20:49
  SPEAKER_01: And where can people find your podcast?
• 20:51
  SPEAKER_00: Yes, uh, you can listen to AEW Unrestricted, new episodes every Thursday on all of your favorite podcast platforms.
• 20:57
  SPEAKER_00: We have video episodes on the AEW podcast page on YouTube.
• 21:01
  SPEAKER_00: Those come out on Mondays.
• 21:02
  SPEAKER_00: Uh, super awesome.
• 21:03
  SPEAKER_00: You can watch Dynamite Wednesdays on TBS, you can watch AEW Rampage Fridays on TNT, you can watch AEW Collision on Saturdays on TNT.
• 21:12
  SPEAKER_00: You can find me on Twitter slash X, whatever it's called now, ref Aubrey.
• 21:17
  SPEAKER_00: You can find me on Instagram, ref Aubrey, if you want to know about refing, if you want to see cat pictures, if you want to whatever other random things I'm into.
• 21:25
  SPEAKER_00: You can learn more about AEW Heels, alleleteheals.com, uh AEW games.com.
• 21:31
  SPEAKER_00: There's so many different cool things that AEW is doing that I'm a part of, that I'm very proud to be a part of.
• 21:36
  SPEAKER_00: And you can find all of it.
• 21:37
  SPEAKER_00: Just follow me on Twitter and I'll point you in the right direction.
• 21:40
  SPEAKER_01: I love that.
• 21:41
  SPEAKER_01: Aubrey Edwards, thanks for doing Caught on the Mic.
• 21:44
  SPEAKER_00: Of course.
• 21:44
  SPEAKER_00: This was awesome.
• 21:45
  SPEAKER_00: Thanks, Mike.
• 21:46
  SPEAKER_01: The world's a much better place with you in it.
• 21:47
  SPEAKER_00: Aww.
• 21:48
  SPEAKER_01: Once again, I'd like to thank Aubrey Edwards for doing the show today and the aforementioned Dr.
• 21:55
  SPEAKER_01: Jones for making the connection.
• 21:57
  SPEAKER_01: Also, would like to give thanks to AEW's media department for making this opportunity for myself and for my listeners possible.
• 22:08
  SPEAKER_01: Make sure you give Aubrey a follow on all social media platforms.
• 22:12
  SPEAKER_01: She can be found under the name Ref Aubrey and follow AEW wherever you can.
• 22:20
  SPEAKER_01: Since you're being generous with the follows, make sure you follow Caught on the Mic on all social media platforms and visit me www.caughtonthemic.com.
• 22:31
  SPEAKER_01: Go up to the corner and click the past episodes tab so you can see the layout that Aubrey was describing and maybe check out an episode you might have missed.
• 22:43
  SPEAKER_01: This has been Caught on the Mic with Michael Clark.
• 22:46
  SPEAKER_01: I'm Michael Clark.
• 22:48
  SPEAKER_01: Until next time, thank you.