All Elite Wrestling Women's World Champion 'The Toxic Spider' Thekla discussed her journey to her recent title victory during an exclusive interview with iHeartMedia.
Thekla, 32, defeated former champion Kris Statlander in a brutal strap match on the February 11 episode of Dynamite to win the title less than one year after making her debut.
"I’ve been taking it out on dates, it’s my new trophy wife," she said while proudly holding the title. "I’ve had some fun with it, taking some cute pictures as a champ should.
“It’s been good, I’ve been celebrating and partying and it’s back to work.”
Statlander was ruled to not be medically cleared after her title loss and the new champion said she's ready for a rematch once that changes.
“Get your s**t together and come back and fight me on for b***h," Thekla said. "I took that thing away from her and she has every right to be mad and she has every right to be crazy about trying to get this back so I’m waiting for it. My thing is always I strive for getting the worst out of people and I think we haven’t seen Kris’ worst side yet even though she showed quite some glimpses of it in our strap match. I think she can go a little further and I hope we can get to see that.”
Thekla also named AEW TBS champion and co-Women's Tag-Team champion Willow Nightingale as a potential challenger for her title, but reiterated that she would face all-comers.
"I want to give maybe, let’s see what Willow's got," she said when asked about potential challengers. "I’ve said it in another interview before I can absolutely see her if she’s still holding the [TBS] title and I’m still holding the [Women’s World] title for one of the big pay-per-views we should go maybe 1 for 1, let’s both put it on the table and see who can go home with double gold. Other than that, hey, who knows who else is going to step up? I like to be comfortable. I like to have them chase me for their opportunity so whoever’s going to step up I’m going to put them through hell first.”
Thekla made her debut last May after being 'fired' from STARDOM after she attacked the Japanese women's wrestling promotion's president and said AEW CEO, President, General Manager and Head of Creative Tony Khan has been walking on egg shells since her arrival.
"He’s a little scared of me, for sure, as he should be," she said. "So is staff, honestly, as they should be. I’m very short tempered but at the moment I have everything I need and everything I want so if anybody was to take this away from me that’s when we’ve got to be really really careful because you don’t want to make me mad that’s for sure.”
Thekla aligned herself with 'The Sisters of Sin' Julia Hart and Skye Blue to form the 'Triangle of Madness' faction shortly after her AEW debut, which she said was important early in her run with the company.
“I think it’s very important to surround yourself with good people and fresh people who are hungry," she said. "I see that hunger in Skye Blue especially. I’ve never seen someone get so excited about a Blood [and Guts] match as Skye Blue. She’s bats**t crazy and I love that. That’s the kind of crazy I vibe with. And Julia just has that eye for beauty and a vision of what’s visually appealing and I really vibe with that as well. Having people like that surround me is really good for me, really important because at any point ask them, ‘what do you think about this?’ What do think about that?’ And they’re also honest and they will give me their opinions so on my way to getting this baby they were really necessary. We’re holding this together the Triangle of Madness.”
Thekla, a native of Vienna, is the second Austrian wrestler to win a world championship in one of the two major North American wrestling promotions, following former two-time WWE World Heavyweight Champion Gunther, and acknowledged the exposure she's bringing to her home country.
"I think it’s really crazy if you think about it cause Austria’s a tiny country and there is so few people coming from Europe to make it this big," she said. The only other person, not talking about Great Britain, of course, but other than that is [AEW star] Claudio [Castagnoli] from Switzerland.
“It’s really insane. Me and Gunther, we both worked for the same underground promotion as well. Him way before my time but it’s really crazy, we’re from the same town even. And I met him backstage at a certain point, we were just dapping each other up. That was before I came to AEW and I was like, ‘I’m going to surpass you at some point,’ and he was like, ‘I want to see that, do it!’ So, it’s really cool, representing my country in that way. I’m not, per se, a nationalist person but it’s very cute and very cool to see how excited Austria is and even German speaking countries. Germany is too, it’s like, yeah, we’ve got someone out there who speaks the language. It’s cool, I like that.”
All Elite Wrestling's flagship show Dynamite will broadcast live from The Mission Ballroom in Denver, Colorado, Wednesday (February 25) night at 8:00 p.m. ET on TBS and HBO Max.