Brandi Rhodes Explains Why the Women’s Division is “Very Important” For ‘AEW: Dynamite’

Tonight All Elite Wrestling: Dynamite makes its debut on TNT. It’s a big deal, not least of all because it marks the first time since 2001 that the WWE has a rival in primetime wrestling programming. It also marks the culmination of a dream hatched about a year ago, when the Young Bucks and Cody Rhodes joined forces with investor Tony Khan to put on the kind of wrestling show they wanted to see. Instead of being reigned over by the McMahon family, All Elite Wrestling would strive to put the wrestlers first, giving the company’s talent more input into creative choices and a safer, more tenable touring schedule.

Brandi Rhodes is on the front lines of all things All Elite Wrestling. She’s the Chief Brand Officer, part of the Women’s Roster, and married to co-Chief Executive Officer Cody Rhodes. Rhodes started off as an athlete, spending her childhood and teen years figure skating, before giving it up to pursue a career in broadcasting. After obtaining a degree in Communications at the University of Michigan, Rhodes moved to Miami, where she was a local news reporter. She then earned her Masters in Communication from the University of Miami while pursuing acting and modeling. Rhodes was scouted by WWE while she was working as a model. During the All Elite Wrestling panel at Summer TCA, Rhodes explained that she is one of the “last” women to get into wrestling that way, or a “dinosaur” as she put it.

“It’s kind of a bygone thing now,” she told reporters. “We usually select independent wrestlers now that have trained for a long time and have been on the independent scene. But back then, it was kind of like a catalogue. They would call an agency and say, ‘Hey, do you have any athletic women?’ And my background is in figure skating, so my agent said sure. And I fell in love with it. I started training and haven’t stopped since.”

Decider caught up with Rhodes a week before the premiere of All Elite Wrestling: Dynamite and spoke to her about the importance of the league’s women’s division, the work that went into designing the Women’s Championship Belt, and bringing out her and Cody’s dog, Pharaoh, during AEW’s most recent PPV special, All Out.

DECIDER: I’m personally really excited about how the show is going to kick off with the first AEW Women’s title match. Can you talk about that, and why it’s important to have such a big, historic moment kick off the first weekly series?  

Brandi Rhodes: Yeah! So, I mean, we’ve touted from the beginning that women’s division is gonna be a very important fixture in AEW, and what better way to showcase that than allow our first champion to be crowned live on the very first TV [show]. It’s really significant. All of the girls are extremely excited.  At All Out we were able to reveal what the first title looks like, it looks amazing. The girls are really thrilled. And we’ve got two incredible competitors that people still have a lot to learn about, so I think that this is kind of a journey for the fans to go on, and that they’re figuring out who some of their favorites are. This gives them an insight into the abilities, and kind of the characters of Riho and Nyla Rose, and it’s something that they can be a part of from the ground up, which is really cool. 

It’s a really fascinating matchup because Riho obviously also represents some of the joshi talent you have. How much is the joshi talent going to be integrated with the other more traditional Western sort of kind of styles in both the ladies leagues again? Are we going to see some more different kinds of wrestling with the men’s league as well? 

Yeah, so with the women it’s very important to us to showcase that there are various different styles of wrestling. It doesn’t just stop with joshi style versus more traditional style — traditional means a lot of different things to a lot of different people. We kind of go across the board as far as our women go, and different styles of wrestling being represented. But as you’re thinking about the joshi, yes, they’re definitely very much ingrained, as people can see from the first title match featuring one of our joshi talent that they’re important to us and that they’re a serious fixture in the division, and you’ll continue to see them integrate with our ladies as time goes on.

Obviously there’s a lot of men’s tag teams already in AEW. You’re having a whole tournament in the first few weeks of the program. Are there going to be any female tag teams that we’re going to see, or mixed gender ones? 

So we’re building to a potential female tag team division. I think Tony [Omega] spoke about it recently that this is something that he’s wanting to do, and of course we’re extremely all onboard. We do have a little bit more of an uphill battle as far when it comes to the women as far as, you know, there aren’t as many fixtures in the division that people don’t know well. There aren’t many Codys or Moxleys or Chris Jerichos, so a lot of these women we are building from the ground-up, here. First time on television for many of them. So I think it’s important that we establish everything that we can with these women first before throwing too many different title opportunities out there.

I wanted to ask about the belt itself for the women’s leagues. I saw, again, a closeup of it after All Out on your Twitter. Is there anything important in the design that you wanted to really represent what an AEW lady’s wrestler represents the company?

Yeah, I think a lot of times with women’s championships, they’re given a little bit less importance, as far as design, so I was very in on the process and wanting to know exactly what it was going to look like. I looked at all of the mock-ups and I had suggestions, and worked very closely with Dave on that. It’s important, always, to have something about a championship that’s a bit different, but I think it can get a little hokey when it comes to women using different colors and things like that just to say, “Hey, we’re women.” I don’t think we have to do that.

So I offered to continue using the black strap because that’s what’s traditional, and, you know, we’re still wrestlers, just because we’re women doesn’t mean that we’re not in on the tradition. So black looked classic to me, and that’s what I wanted to go with. Again in that hint of being a little bit different, because no two titles should look alike, I had the idea to use the rose gold because it’s never been done, that metal has never been used on a championship before. So rather than painted metal or something like that, why not use a popular metal that people seem to be pretty fond of? And it’s just subtle, it’s not in your face, but it is different.

Going forward with the live show, what are you most excited about and you most nervous about? 

I think the most exciting thing about this show is that that arena, Capital One Arena in Washington D.C., is a fantastic arena. It’s a nice, grand size, as you know, it sold out, so it’s gonna be packed with some really passionate and exciting people. So I’m just excited to see and hear the live crowd for the first time when we turn on to TNT, and I hope that all the fans that are watching from home will feel that energy from our live fans and want to be a part of the action when we come to their town.

As far as anything that’s nerve-wracking, I mean, it’s live television, you know? Anything can happen when you’re going live. I rely on all of the athletes and everybody. It is very experienced. We trust each other unconditionally so I’m sure everything will be great. That’s the great reason to want to catch it too, it is live and it’s the first time, and you never know what’s gonna happen live.  

In terms of cord-cutters, people who don’t have a cable subscription, is there a way for them, if they have Hulu, or is it B/R Live, do you have a streaming option for people who don’t have a coaxial cable hookup anymore?

That’s something that we’ve seen popping up here and there socially, and it’s something that people have heard and are definitely talking about, and I think we just have to see how things play out. You know, obviously, the very first week is very important to us as far as the live show is concerned. We’re kind of crossing that battle first, and then we’ll see what the future looks like. 

Switching gears, at All Out, you and Cody Rhodes had an amazing entrance with the Star Trek theme, and Pharaoh was there, and the fireworks. Was Pharaoh okay? Because he looked spooked to me from the audience and I was worried about him, but I also was curious if he was going to pop up again on the show going forward, because he is just adorable.  

Yeah, no, Pharaoh is absolutely fine. Dogs do get scared, children get scared, people get scared, things happen that we don’t plan for, but it’s how you react, and Pharaoh was tended to so nicely backstage. Pharaoh is probably more spoiled than if I had a child. He has full-time babysitters and caretakers, he pretty much eats out of a silver spoon, so he’s a very very well cared-for and well cared about animal. So I appreciate you being concerned about him, but he was great a few minutes later when he was being fed treats by my mother backstage, he was very happy.

As far as Pharaoh going forward, my preference is to never have Pharaoh there ever again. I never wanted Pharaoh there, ever. Fans really wanted to meet Pharaoh. And I think Pharaoh and his brothers have a good time at home in Atlanta, and I like that for him, but he’s done some really positive things. I think so far $20,000 he’s raised for Paws Chicago alone, and we’ve seen him be able to help various dogs have surgeries and find their forever homes. So I’m sure you’ll continue to see Pharaoh. The great thing is that we film a lot of our studio work in Atlanta, which is why we like to use Pharaoh because it’s just home for him. But if I have it my way, I don’t think Pharaoh will travel to another show like that now. You know, I’m not the only person that owns Pharaoh though, I can’t say for sure, but that’s my preference.

All Elite Wrestling: Dynamite premieres on TNT tonight at 8 PM ET. 

Where to stream All Elite Wrestling: Dynamite