'I can make these people feel things': Inside Kris Statlander's 'surreal, insane' rise as AEW's underdog champ

'I can make these people feel things': Inside Kris Statlander's 'surreal, insane' rise as AEW's underdog champ

Professional wrestling wasnt something Kris Statlander necessarily planned for. The reigning AEW Womens World Champion was originally training to be a stunt double, but didnt have enough money to pay the four-figure application fee for her SAG-AFTRA card, which kept her from doing stunt work in movies. And thats how she tumbled down into a rabbit hole she never truly anticipated.

Without an emotional connection to the product born from a childhood of fandom, Statlander didnt have the same goals or aspirations many have to get signed by a particular company, or even to become a world champion. She simply wanted to see where things would go. Yet less than 10 years after lacing her boots for the first time, Statlanders journey has taken her from a promising up-and-comer to being half of one of the prominent matches at AEW WrestleDream 2025 in St. Louis on Saturday, where shell defend her world title against the former champion and one of the faces of AEW, “Timeless” Toni Storm.

As the new ruler of AEW’s womens division, it’s a monumental moment that still hasnt fully set in.

It’s a very surreal, insane thing,” Statlander tells Uncrowned, “because it’s something that so many people work so hard for, to kind of prove themselves and to prove that they can be the face of a company and worthy of the most prestigious title. It’s still settling in a little bit that I am in that position.

So it’s been a lot of fun. It’s been very challenging, but I feel like I’m working really hard to put my best foot forward and be the best champion that I can be.

Theres always pressure to live up to the expectations that come with wrestling on a weekly show or pay-per-view in AEW. That pressure hits different, though, when youre the top champion in the division.

I am someone who is always putting pressure on themselves no matter what, because I always want to strive to be better and work hard and just make sure that I’m always at the top of my game, Statlander says.

I think after the first week or two I was like, OK, we really gotta lock in right now and get this going. It’s so hard to step up into that position as a champion after someone like Toni Storm has held it for so long. [She] redefined herself and she made the title as prestigious as it is just by being who she is.

Theres a timeline where none of this materializes for Statlander. Across her six-year career in AEW, she has suffered two devastating injuries two ACL tears, one on each knee. Both injuries were difficult mental challenges, but ultimately challenges Statlander believes she emerged stronger from.

Through all the scariness of it and the difficulty and the pain, and just the uncertainty, just my desire to make sure that I was at the level I was before, if not better, really helped push me through, she says.

I feel like it changed the trajectory of my career, showing that you can come back from injury different than you were before, in a good way. A lot of people always worry that it’s, oh, they’re going to be a step behind, or they’re going to lose who they were as a performer, but I was fortunate enough to be injured majorly so early on that I still hadn’t even reached my peak yet. I try to remember that there’s always more to accomplish, and as long as I work hard and put my mind to it, I can accomplish anything.

Statlander acknowledges that it was heartbreaking to go through her injuries. There were times where she questioned if she was good enough to make it back, and other times where she dealt with the difficulties of being out of sight, out of mind in the non-stop, 24/7 nature of the wrestling business.

Through injuries and the mental anguish of not being back in the ring, Statlander says she was never lacking motivation for her return, though. Shes always loved being athletic, physical and putting on great performances, and that helped in driving her to return even better than ever.

Just being able to put on these really extreme performances and making people feel things through that, being able to put myself through this pain and anguish and, I don’t know, it’s like a weird, very, I guess, masochistic kind of thought-process, being like, ‘I can make these people feel things through hurting myself,’ Statlander says.

But I just always loved physicality and wanting to put on such a great performance and just wanting to see wrestling, this very niche, odd thing, succeed. And it’s so fun to be a part of it and to make as many milestones happen as possible.

Statlander relishes being a major player in modern-day womens wrestling and taking advantage of the increasing opportunities theyve earned. She points to her Street Fight against Willow Nightingale at AEW All Out 2024 as a match shes particularly proud of, especially the thumbtack spot that, as she says, “everyone likes to remember.

That was something that I was thinking about for months before that, and I was so excited to finally get to do that spot,” Statlander continues. “It hurts when you’re doing it. I don’t love the pain, but it’s amazing to get that reaction that you were so excited to do it for.”

In AEW, Statlander is still finding her ceiling. As the Womens World Champion, she wont limit herself to wrestling in one division and would be open to eventually challenging in the mens division as well.

I’ve done a lot of inter-gender wrestling in my early years of wrestling and I have won men’s championships before, so I know it’s not something thats out of the realm of possibility for me,” she says. “It’s just a matter of if there’s a chance for it that makes sense for it to happen in AEW. I would volunteer to be the first one to make that happen, if possible. Ultimately that is not up to me, but I am all on board to make that happen.

For now, her focus is on making this title run a memorable one one where she establishes exactly who she is as a performer.

I want this to be remembered as the time where I truly found who I’m supposed to be as a wrestler, Statlander says.

I feel like I’ve gone through a lot of evolving and switching up who I am and how I portray myself. And I feel like this is where I’m finally getting to step in and step up with my input on my creativity and making who I am, truly, who I am supposed to be. I want to put on amazing matches. I want to have amazing moments in my career and I am just looking to put my best foot forward, as I always try to do.

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