All Elite Wrestling‘s Brandi Rhodes talked to Dominic DeAngelo of WrestleZone about the company’s strong partnership with KultureCity, an organization focused on making events “sensory inclusive” for all individuals that have difficulty attending events with unique abilities. In the first part of this exclusive 20-minute interview, AEW’s Chief Branding Officer gives all the details about what KultureCity is about and gives the backstory about the organization’s founders. Rhodes also talks about how the scouting process for women’s talent in AEW has evolved and the big help Kenny Omega has played in the process. Quotes are below:
AEW Chief Branding Officer Brandi Rhodes on what KultureCity is about:
KultureCity is an organization that is devoted to making as many large-scale public events “sensory inclusive” and what that means is making it being able to experience at its best by people who deal with certain issues like autism, PTSD, if they suffered a recent stroke, if they have really high anxiety, those are kind of some people that KultureCity aims to help. And the ways in which these events can be challenging for these people is if they have sensitivities to different things that their senses are effected by like really loud sounds which we all know if we’ve ever been to a live wrestling event, it is very loud, especially if when you have pyro and even the ring itself is just loud with the noise that it makes when the bodies hit the ring and then lighting. You have a lot of different fireworks and sparklers and sometimes trons and entrances are very elaborate and there are a lot of strong smells and things that happen at these events. Sometimes they can be overwhelming.
So what KultureCity always aims to do is they do a few things: they provide the free bags to people in need and those bags are going to have a number of things, but a few of them are noise-canceling headphones which is great for people who have a lot of sound sensitivities and this helps them to enjoy the event without them being so effected by the sound. Then they of course have different things like emotional cue cards where you have to let somebody know if you’re in a state where you’re not able to verbalize how you’re feeling, you can still let someone know how you’re feeling if you need to escape for a bit or what your individual needs are.
The other thing that they do is they provide sensory rooms in a lot of these buildings. They’re currently in 250 large buildings across the United States which is amazing cause they’ve only been around for five years so they’ve been really busy and doing a lot of good work.
A lot of times, the event ends when something happens which is really sad. You don’t ever want to hear that someone was waiting, was so excited to go to this event for so long and then they went and they were only there for maybe 30 minutes and then they had to leave. This provides them that option, to be able to gather themselves and then get back to the event and still enjoy themselves and have a great time so it’s a really cool partnership and we’re so excited about Double Or Nothing being the first sensory-inclusive wrestling event.
On the kindness of KultureCity’s founders, Julian and Michelle:
The couple that we were with. They are actually Julian and Michelle and they are the founders of KultureCity. They have a wonderful story. They’re just really smart, wonderful and caring people and really enjoying it if you know them because you can tell if it’s monetary or if it’s about the relationship. For them it’s 100% about the relationship and helping people and I just really love to be getting to know them.
They have a very interesting story, they have a son that suffers from sensory needs and many times in their early lives, they were unable to do a lot of things. A lot of times, that would be when the event would end when something would go wrong and if he wasn’t able to have his needs met, they’d have to leave and they said that they found themselves kind of secluded. Unable to do a lot of things that they wanted to do as a family and that is what sparked them to get started with KultureCity and to see the amount of people they’ve been able to help and that they would continue to be able to help is just really, really cool and they’re really great and deserving people so I’m happy that they were able to found this and I can’t wait to see what we’re able to with it over time.
On how the AEW talent scouting process has developed for her over time:
I think when I started off, it kind of felt a little bit like an urgency. “Uh, okay, we have to figure out who’s the best of the best and we have to sign them and we have to do it right now. What changed is in that small amount of time is that word is traveling about AEW and we started to grow, a lot of it has become much more open. So once the company was actually formed and everyone was fully aware of what we’re doing, the outreach became amazing so honestly, it made my job quite easy because of a lot of very talented women have just reached out and sent their reels and wanted more information and of course that’s a really cool thing to have.
I’m always very, very impressed by a lot of women, especially ones that I’ve never heard of before when they send me their reels, I’m like “Wow, I don’t know how I’ve heard of you because you are extremely talented.”
On how Kenny Omega has been such a huge help in the process:
Kenny has always been on the record that he is very passionate about Japanese women’s wrestling so in that sense it has always been a no-brainer for me that he would be involved in there and like I said it was extremely helpful that he’s fluent in Japanese because I’d have no idea how I would go about figuring that one out without him. So yeah, it’s been a really cool kind of dynamic and we’ll see how everything continues moving forward but it’s definitely been nice to work on that as team.
More transcriptions are to come, but you can listen to the entire conversation below:
