Paige VanZant Is Frustrated That AEW Will Not Let Her Do “Crazy Stuff”

ESPN MMA's Marc Raimondi spoke with AEW's latest recruit Paige VanZant to discuss her deal with the company and her experience working in the world of pro wrestling so far.

Despite the positive response to her official signing being announced, VanZant expressed some frustrations that she's had so far with pro wrestling.

"I love it," Paige said. "I think the only, my only frustrations so far with my pro wrestling is I would show up and I want to, I said, 'hey, I want to jump off the ropes tonight. I want to slam someone through a table tonight. Someone's getting slammed through a table'. And they're like, 'oh, you should probably train first'. And I'm like, 'no, I'm ready.' Like so, I think my only concern is that they don't let me do the crazy stuff right away.

"I want to go in there and do all the crazy stuff. I want to fully immerse myself in this world. But yeah, I want to be a part of all of it. Everything I've seen, everything, CM Punk's dog collar match was epic. I just feel like it's a whole side of me that hasn't been shown yet and you see a little bit of it in BKFC because of the violence, the bare-knuckle boxing. But this is a whole nother world that's going to open up and people will see a whole new side of Paige Van Zant."

The former UFC fighter discussed whether appearing in the squared circle felt natural to her, after coming from a sports-oriented background.

"It definitely did and I feel like a lot of people, when they come out of, you know, pro fighting, MMA, boxing, there's always a conversation to do something like pro wrestling, but for me, I wasn't doing it because I had to," VanZant explained. "I did it because I wanted to. I showed up because I wanted to be a part of the show. I was doing all those for free because I wanted to be part of their event and I just stuck around long enough until they decided that they couldn't let me go."

Paige VanZant made her presence felt on the March 9 episode of Dynamite by attacking Tay Conti, during the AEW TNT Championship match between Sammy Guevara and Scorpio Sky. The distraction played a part in allowing Scorpio to defeat Guevara to win the title. After the match, Paige signed her AEW contract on top of Conti in the middle of the ring.

If you use any quotes from this article, please credit ESPN MMA with an h/t to Wrestling Inc for the transcription.