Ruby Soho On When She Found Out She Would Headline AEW Grand Slam

In an interview with Inside the Ropes, AEW star Ruby Soho talked about main eventing AEW Dynamite: Grand Slam at Arthur Ashe last month, where she challenged Dr. Britt Baker DMD for the AEW Women's World Championship. According to Soho, she only learned she and Baker were headlining the show when she got to Arthur Ashe that day.

"I found out when I got there and I looked at the card," Soho revealed. "I was like 'hold on.' And I'm trying to find the match after us and there's not one. I was like 'oh my god', and I'm staring at it for an absurdly long time, where I'm just like 'this has got to me some typo. There's no way.' I had seen the other matches on the card and I was just blow away. I double checked and asked 'Tony, are we the main event?' He said 'yup. Main event!' I was like 'oh my gosh!'

"I was at that point in that moment where I was like 'I don't know how much more my heart can take. I've been here for three weeks and I've been able to debut on our most historic PPV that we've ever had. And now I get to, on a card of legendary performers, I get the honor of having my very first title match as a main event of our biggest Dynamite to date. The first time we'd ever performed any wrestling in that building.' It happened already and I'm still in disbelief. It's just been one amazing thing after another. I don't know how I'm going to top this. And now we have the TBS Women's tournament and I'm like 'okay!' I guess it's just another amazing milestone I get to be a part of. I'm just crazy lucky, I'm so lucky to be a part of this and be part of these monumental moments in AEW history. I'm just very grateful."

Soho admits that she believes she has a lot to prove right now, both to herself and to the rest of the AEW Women's roster. She revealed that the Baker match showed her she was still capable of performing at the level, and now her main focus has turned to making history by winning the AEW TBS Women's Championship tournament. After a win over Penelope Ford in the first round this past Saturday, she's off to a good start.

"I have a lot to prove, more so to myself I think than anybody else, about what I'm capable of as a performer," Soho said. "Right now, I have the most freedom of who I am and as a performer, as a wrestler, I have the most freedom and the most control. And I think I'm trying to map out my steps carefully, because I want to set myself up for success, and I want to prove to myself that I can still do it. That I can still go. I have such amazing competition, I have these women that are going to push me. They're going to bring something out that I didn't even know existed, and I'm fully aware of that and I experienced that.

"In that match with Britt Baker, I didn't even know that I could do that anymore. To take something positive out of not becoming the AEW Women's World Champion, I proved to myself that I could do it. Now it's just about 'okay, now you can do it. Now what can you do with it?' Right now my main focus is making history in this company as the first ever TBS Women's Champion. And in order to do that, I've got to go through a lot of women in the tournament to make that happen. That's my main focus right now and it's to get to know the women that I don't know as well, and refresh myself on the women that I do now, and get myself as prepared as I possibly can so I can really hit the ground running."

As for the backstage environment of AEW, Soho has nothing but positive things to say. She particularly gave praise to AEW President Tony Khan, putting over his excitement and passion for pro wrestling.

"It's been amazing. It's so great," Soho said. "Tony is the best boss. He's the best honestly. His excitement and his passion for professional wrestling is infectious throughout the locker room. When he comes up to you and he's excited about something, you're excited too. And you haven't even heard what he's had to say, but you can tell just by how stoked he is about it. It's amazing. It's such a positive and inviting energy and a productive one that makes you want to work hard. It makes you want to go that extra mile, because you know your boss is so excited, so you want to do well for him, the product, your peers. You want to do well overall, so it's a very encouraging environment. And like I said, a lot of these people I've worked with years ago. Granted it feels like a lifetime ago, it was about five years ago. But they're still friends, they're still people I knew, road tripped with and stuff. It felt new, but it also kind of felt old, if that makes sense."

You can watch the full interview below.