AEW Referee Aubrey Edwards Recalls 'Terrifying' NXT Tryout

AEW referee Aubrey Edwards got her first national exposure as a referee in WWE's 2018 Mae Young Classic. In an interview with Renee Paquette, she described the lengthy tryout process that led to a handful of appearances for NXT, calling it both "terrifying" but also a "cool experience."

WWE had been looking for female referees for the all-women tournament. According to Edwards, she made four separate trips to the Performance Center for a cumulative 16 days, including one week-long stretch in the summer.

"They said we want to see you in a class structure, we want to see you working with the other refs, we want to give you the full referee experience," Edwards said. That week included daily yoga training hosted by Diamond Dallas Page, where Edwards – a long-time yoga practitioner – felt she was able to hold her own in workouts alongside wrestlers like Lacey Evans and Shayna Baszler.

After helping out with NXT tapings and dark matches, Edwards was chosen to work a "ton of matches" during the August tournament. She was in the ring for a particularly scary spot: when Tegan Nox suffered a knee injury in a match with Rhea Ripley.

"I'm just trying to focus on her but, at the same time, I don't work here, so what do I need to do to make sure she's as safe as possible?" she said. "It was just a whirlwind of, 'Oh god, this is crazy.' And I think how I handled that situation had an impact in the other times that I got brought in."

Afterward, Edwards worked several "Coconut Loop" weekend tours for NXT. A permanent job with NXT would have likely meant a move to Orlando, which she said she would have agreed to, but she's grateful that her job with AEW allows her to live in Seattle, as opposed to Orland.

"I don't like constant heat," she said. "I grew up in California and I moved away so that should tell you something."