Red Velvet Reflects On Her Growth In AEW, Having a Rough Time With Early Fan Reactions

Red Velvet has grown a lot in her time at AEW, and she recently recalled how hard it was to deal with the reaction to her online early on. Velvet made her debut for AEW during the pandemic lockdown era, specifically in June of 2020. She has been a regular performer for the company since and has risen to become the ROH Women’s TV Champion. She defeated Mercedes Mone, one of the top women in the company, for the title at Final Battle earlier this month.

Velvet was a guest on AEW Close Up with Renee Paquette and spoke about growing into her role in the company. She noted that she had a difficult time with the online reaction at first and recalled advice that Cody Rhodes gave her. You can see the highlights below:

On Her Growth Over Her Time In AEW:

“I was a baby. And a baby not necessarily in age, just in like wrestling for a big company on TV. I thought I had it figured out. I don’t want to go on record and say I didn’t know what I was doing? But like, I didn’t know what I was doing in the sense I thought I knew. But I just learned so much. The world got to see me for the first time on big TV.

“People got to see who Red Velvet was. They saw a lot of my good moments, a lot of my bad moments. And I say bad, I’m just like, growth and little injuries and botches and stuff. So I’ve grown with the AEW audience.”

On the Experience of ‘Growing Up On Camera’:

“The beginning was rough for me. I don’t think I knew what I was getting myself into once you’re under a microscope. Like, I wrestled for a couple years before getting on TV. But once you’re on TV, like there’s so [many] more people that know you. And the fans were rough. Oh, they were rough. And I remember going online and saying like, ‘What’s wrong with people?’ and stuff like that.

“And I remember Cody specifically was like, ‘Hey, it’s going to get harder after this. Uou got to have thick skin and whatever they say about you, that’s not who you are.’ Like, ‘Stay close to who you are.’ So I needed that because I was just used to — I was like, ‘I don’t have people talk to me in this way. They don’t know me.’ So that was something I had to brush off really quickly and after matches just like, don’t go to the internet.”

If you use any of the quotes in this article, please credit AEW with a h/t to 411mania.com for the transcription.