Britt Baker has emerged as one of the top stars in women’s professional wrestlers since she joined All Elite Wrestling in 2019 but stepping into the squared circle wasn’t always the dream.
The Punxsutawney, Pennsylvania, native enrolled at the University of Pittsburgh School of Dental Medicine in the same year she began to train to be a professional wrestler. Dr. Britt Baker, D.M.D., isn’t a wrestling gimmick or kayfabe. Instead, it’s a real-life role she handles in addition to being a wrestler.
Baker told Fox News Digital in a recent interview she was just a fan of wrestling before she thought to herself she could perform in the ring as good, if not better than, anyone else.
“I was just a fan. I never dreamed of it as a kid,” Baker said. It was never anything that I was chasing until I learned that I could really. I was in a wormhole on YouTube of what’s called indy wrestling – independent wrestling. And I found out that some of my favorite wrestlers, like massive WWE stars, all started off in what’s called the independent wrestling circuit. Pretty much anyone could do it. You’re wrestling in front of 50 people in bingo halls and high school auditoriums and anyone can do it.
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Dr. Britt Baker, D.M.D. addresses the crowd during AEW Dynamite – Beach Break on Jan. 26, 2022, in Cleveland, Ohio. (Frank Jansky/Icon Sportswire via Getty Images)
“That got kind of my brain ticking. ‘Hey, maybe I should just try it and see because I love wrestling so much maybe I will like it.’ And then the first time I tried out and stepped foot inside a wrestling ring, the rest was history. The problem was I was already accepted into dental school. So, I decided right then and there I was gonna be a wrestler and a dentist.”
Baker is a licensed dentist in Florida and admitted sometimes it gets tough to deal with patients who are also big fans of hers.
“Very carefully. It’s hard. I would say right now it’s definitely the hardest time to manage of any time since I became a licensed dentist because they don’t teach you in dental school how to handle wrestling fans coming into your practice as patients and hunting down autographs and pictures and it’s very hard because you want to be respectful of the fans and give them your time but not in the dental office. That’s for patients that need help and care and not an autograph,” she said.
Baker, who is one of the wrestlers featured on the company’s new unscripted series “AEW All Access,” is now aligned with Jamie Hayter, the current AEW World Women’s Champion, and dealing with the likes of Saraya, Ruby Soho and Toni Storm on a weekly basis on Dynamite and Rampage.
Hayter joined AEW in 2019 and then later in 2021 after making waves in the ring in the United Kingdom in Revolution Pro Wrestling and in Japan with World Wonder Ring Stardom. Hayter defeated Storm to win the women’s title at Full Gear and then defended it on Dynamite in December and again at Revolution.
Baker had nothing but good things to say about Hayter’s emergence as one of the top stars. Baker told Fox News Digital how Hayter was able to come to AEW.
Dr. Britt Baker, D.M.D. in the ring during AEW Dynamite on Jan. 26, 2022, at the Wolstein Center in Cleveland. (Frank Jansky/Icon Sportswire via Getty Images)
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“Jamie was a girl I wrestled when I was on the independents before AEW was ever a thing. I met her in the UK and I thought right away, (when) I wrestled her there, she was fantastic. Her and I really got along well. And I kinda just always stayed in touch with her,” she said. “So once AEW came around and I signed, and I had a pretty good relationship with our owner Tony Khan and I kinda kept nudging him, ‘Hey, there’s this girl Jamie Hayer. Hey, there’s this girl Jamie Hayter. She’s really great.’ Eventually, we finally signed her and her and I are aligned together. We’re a tag team. And she’s one of the biggest starts in all of women’s wrestling now. I saw that years ago when I first met her. This girl is a freaking star. She is so good. She is one of the hardest hitting wrestlers, not hardest hitting girls, hardest hitting wrestlers of all time. I’m so happy she’s on my team so I don’t have to fight her. She’s just somebody that’s the definition of hard work pays off.”
Hayter was able to make an immediate impact on fans and garner their support, turning her from a heel to babyface wrestler along with Baker.
Bea Priestley and Jamie Hayter pose for photographs during the Women’s Pro-Wrestling Stardom – No People Gate at Korakuen Hall on March 8, 2020, in Tokyo. (Etsuo Hara/Getty Images)
“When she came in, she was someone who was kinda thrown on live TV. I was the champion at the time and she was with me,” Baker said. “She was kind of like my protector, my bodyguard and we were the bad guys, which was really fun. But the fans just came to love Jamie so much and love me and Jamie together and now we’re the good guys. And now Jamie is the champion and I’m telling you, when her music hits, she gets one of the loudest reactions on the entire show. And it’s so cool even to be the smallest part of her success story. It’s such a cool feeling because you want to help other people. If you don’t bring other girls up with you, then you’re gonna be by yourself.”
All Elite Wrestling has emerged as a formidable No. 2 in the professional wrestling world behind the goliath that is WWE. AEW founder Tony Khan, the son of Jacksonville Jaguars and Fulham FC owner Shad Khan, has made every effort to make it an alternative by bringing in the likes of Baker, The Young Bucks, Adam Cole, Jon Moxley, Chris Jericho, Saraya and MJF to make the programming must-see.
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Baker said Khan’s wrestling fandom and his ability to connect with the wrestlers has a lot to do with the success of the company.
“Just how he treats people. How he treats his fans and those who support him. He really does care and not only that, you know he cares about you and what your thoughts are and what your concerns are. He’s a human and you feel that way when you’re talking to him,” Baker told Fox News Digital. “When you think of like a billionaire and the owner of the Jags and the owner of Fulham football, you think he’s some out of this world person that won’t even give you the time of day and it’s the total opposite. You can text him and call him at anytime and eventually he will get back to you or as soon as he can.
“But I think, as far as AEW goes, what makes him so special is that he was a fan. A fan of wrestling before anything. So, we have a fan of our sport kind of driving the bus right now and what better way to start a new wrestling revolution with someone who’s an actual fan. It’s not just a corporate, business power move. It’s somebody who truly loves what we do.”
Jade Cargill and President of All Elite Wrestling Tony Khan attend TBS’s AEW Dynamite Los Angeles Debut After Party at The Forum on June 1, 2022, in Inglewood, California. (Leon Bennett/Getty Images for Warner Bros. Discovery)
Baker said she really believes Khan could turn the business into a behemoth akin to that of WWE.
“I do. I think so,” she said. “When I first signed with AEW, I really took a chance and took a risk because all I ever wanted was to be with WWE but I just felt so strongly and so passionate about AEW. And the fact that they told me I could still be a dentist while I was wrestling. That’s all I need to hear. That was it.
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“But we started very small. We didn’t even have a TV deal yet and now we have two TV shows on TBS and TNT. We have ‘All-Access’ the reality show. And now we just announced we’re going to be wrestling in the UK at Wembley Stadium, which is huge. Massive. We’re well on our way, making huge strides and there’s a lot of people that this is just kind of an alternative to WWE. If you don’t like that, you can watch this. Or if you like that, you can also watch AEW. And it’s just cool that we have the options. And also, it is competition for WWE. And competition makes everything better because everyone has to rise up or they’re gonna fall behind. So it just makes all of professional wrestling better having AEW around.”
