In a recent interview with the Daily Star, Mariah May discussed her experience in AEW, noting that the locker room environment feels like a closely-knit family.
May will challenge Toni Storm for the AEW Women’s World Championship at All In: London 2024 on August 25.
You can check out some highlights from the interview below:
On her journey in wrestling so far: “Gosh, I mean where to start. I wanted to wrestle since I was a child. Then when I left school, I was training whilst working other jobs to pay for the training. Then I started to work on the indies but I think mainstay is generous! I was definitely working as hard as I could. I was travelling all over the country, training where I could, taking seminars where I could, doing whatever shows I could – in front of maybe 10 people on average. Then I had the opportunity to go to Japan, within my first few weeks – I was only supposed to go for a couple of months – I was asking if I could stay for longer. They asked how long, and I said as long as I can, forever? They said sure! So I ended up moving to Japan on a whim, I had maybe two suitcases of stuff! I got to wrestle 100 matches which was really pivotal for me in making the jump to America, being on TV and being a part of AEW. It did all happen very quickly but there was a lot of travel and work in that journey to AEW and now to be able to wrestle at Wembley!”
On what wrestling at Wembley Stadium means to her: “Its kind of crazy. I’ve been to Wembley a few times for concerts and sports. To think ‘I get to be here and wrestle?!”. But I’ve worked really hard and I made my mark on Toni Storm. People say my rise was super quick and they didn’t see it coming but I did. Because I was smart. I picked Toni Storm for a reason, and this, Wembley, was the goal I had in mind.”
On the AEW locker room compared to other locker rooms she’s been in: “I loved them all. Stardom is my family, AEW is my family. In both of them, I’ve been a foreigner. I know we both speak English, but I’m technically a foreigner, and I feel like they’ve both looked after me so much. I don’t have family or friends and they’re so sweet. They’ve taken me in as their own. Japan is a real sisterhood, they’re a little bit younger so its kind of like school in a way. Whereas I feel AEW is a family, you have your mums and your dads, you’ve got people from so many walks of life and doing so many different things. It’s huge, there’s so many different people there. You have brothers and sisters. A real family. It’s lovely there.”
