AEW Women's Champion Britt Baker has become one of the company's top stars, though she once had a WWE tryout alongside current "Superstars" Bianca Belair and Lacey Evans. Interestingly, WWE higher-ups felt Baker should finish her four years of dental school before signing a contract with them.
"Originally, there was no AEW so everybody wanted to go to WWE," she recalled. "That was the dream. And I had a tryout with WWE, and in my tryout was Bianca [Belair], Lacey [Evans], and I’m trying to think of the others, but there was a small group of us that had been picked to go do this secondary physical where it was like, ‘Oh man, we’re all getting signed! This is the crew.’"
"And then Canyon [Ceman] pulled me aside and said, ‘You know, as a father, I have a hard time pulling you from your academic career. You’re going to be a dentist so I want you to finish that and then email.’ And this was like year one of dental school, so I knew I still had four years to go."
Explaining that she was crestfallen at the time to learn WWE felt she should finish her training, Baker added that the company "recently" made it known they would be interested in signing her.
"AEW came along just as I was finishing dental school and it was like the perfect storm for me," she explained, sharing her relief about not signing with WWE. "Because I could still practice dentistry three days a week, I could still travel, wrestle on TV, grow my craft, and to me, there was no – it’s not a question. Of course! Like, ‘Tony Khan, what’s up man? Let’s do this.’ And then it’s no secret because he’s already said it by now so the cat’s out of the bag. I’m not going to get in trouble."
"WWE was definitely poking the bear a little bit through [Tony Khan] recently when I was with AEW. Like, ‘Hey, we’re really interested in her.’ Without teetering the lines of contract tampering, they definitely let me know they had interest in me. But it wasn’t a mutual thing, you know? I’m very happy in AEW, and I’m very content and thankful for all of the opportunities I’ve had there."
Baker concluded by making one thing clear: "This is where I want to stay."