During the latest episode of Insight with Chris Van Vliet, AEW’s Kris Statlander talks on the differences between her character and how she is in real life and how she landed in AEW.
On the differences between her character and her real-life self and if they are similar:
“Well, Kris Stadtlander, the non-wrestler, it’s spelt s, t, a, d, t, l, a, n, d, e, r, so that’s really a big difference. I also feel like I’m very shy, and when I’m meeting new people, I really don’t speak a lot because I don’t ever want to like interfere with the vibes of other people in a group, and I worry sometimes people might not think I’m friendly for that, but I always try to be friendly. I like to keep to myself. I like to be kind of alone a lot of my time. But then at work, big, powerful, strong person, and I try to be more out there. I try to be bold and daring and scary and stuff like that. But I’m not a scary person. I’m not an intimidating person. I’m such a weird, weird, weird, weird, dork person, and I don’t have any shame in that. I’m not afraid to admit that, and I think it’s taken me a long time to be like I don’t care if you think I’m weird. I don’t think care if you think I’m cringey in my personal time, because that’s who I am, and I’m not gonna apologize for acting weird on my own time. So I think that’s the biggest thing, is that I tried to kind of be everybody, be both of them at once. When I was alien Kris early on, trying to be like, No, I’m just a weird person, and I’m gonna do embarrassing things, but I’m an alien, so it’s fine. You understand that it’s different, but now trying to be a more serious, more badass character. People don’t like it when you do weird things, they’re like, that doesn’t make any sense. And I’m like, Well, I’m sorry. It’s just me. I can’t help it, sometimes.”
On making her debut with AEW in 2019 as Kris Statlander, the same year she made her debut on WWE SmackDown under the name Kristin?
“Well, originally the team name was supposed to be the Brooklyn Pizza Connection, and we were supposed to be named Saucy and Cheesy.” opportunity with AEW come about?
On how the opportunity with AEW came about:
“I got an email, and I was like, Okay, I’ll go. Sounds great. Then I was very fortunate when I showed up to AEW, just as an extra work, they brought me in. I got the dark match, and we had done training before in the ring, and before I even did my dark match, I remember people being like, did anyone talk to you about your contract? And I was like, I don’t even do anything. Are you sure? And then we had gotten into the talks of turning it into me being a part of the roster. But I just remember showing up, and I was like, Why do you want me here? I didn’t even do anything yet. So, yeah, that’s kind of how it worked out, just getting the emails and just working hard. I remember that day, whatever, the day that I got my first opportunity with AEW, I was doing like six shows a week at the time on the Indies, I was tired. Three weeks in a row, I did like six shows.”
All quotes are courtesy of Insight with Chris Van Vliet.
Statlander also takes on winning the TBS Title, the bed of nails during Blood & Guts and more!
The full interview can be viewed below: