Anna Jay On How Helpful Dustin Rhodes Has Been Coaching AEW Women's Matches

On a recent episode of Talk Is Jericho, Chris Jericho sat down with Dark Order's Anna Jay where she discussed her development in AEW so far. Jay talked about how Dustin Rhodes is typically the one that sets up the women's matches and helps out the women whenever they need it.

"A lot of the times, Dustin's our coach for the women, and a lot of times he'll kind of say the layout that he likes or what he envisions for us. And then we'll kind of go off and say what we want to do or what move do you want to head and stuff like that," Jay revealed. "So it's kind of half and half."

Jericho and Jay noted that Rhodes typically does a lot of the training with the women as well and that besides Hikaru Shida, who works with AEW EVP Kenny Omega, Rhodes is the one that coaches the women's matches. Jay talked about how helpful Rhodes has been especially for her since she is still new in pro wrestling.

"It's cool because he does the training for the women, so he kind of knows how all of us move and what moves we do and how we wrestle," Jay noted. "It's cool that he gets to be our coach for the matches because he already kind of has an idea in his head about how everything will work. He's been so helpful to all of us to.

"Go to training and he pretty much coaches all the women's matches, like you said, besides Kenny with Shida, but he's helped me ton. He's really cares too, so it's nice to have someone who knows all your moves, knows what you can do [well] and help you look good when you go out there because that's important, especially for me being new."

Jay admitted on the podcast that the Brodie Lee tribute show was her first time working in front of a live crowd. Jericho also recalled Orange Cassidy asking him for advice, but he couldn't give an answer because of the lack of a crowd.

"I think it's actually good how they've brought the crowd back little by little. I feel like that has helped me some because the first actual live match that I've had with the crowd was this past week," Jay revealed. "I haven't even had the experience to wrestle in front of a crowd. I've either been on a taped show or in Dark, we don't have anyone out there. So this past week was really cool.

"That was the whole different experience for me, but I think it helps me like understand how you do have to listen to them. But it was cool that it wasn't so many people, maybe that would be a little bit more intimidating. Of course, me being newer, I kind of have to tune out certain things and just have tunnel vision, but on certain parts of the match, I could definitely hear it, and it really does help a lot.

"I remember I was working with Orange at some point over the summer," Jericho added. "He's like, 'Did I take too long to do that, or did I go too fast?' And I was like, 'I don't know. I can't tell.' The barometer is always the reaction of the people."

During the Deadly Draw Tag Team Tournament, Jay teamed up with Tay Conti to form TayJay and the two have been seen as a duo ever since. She talked about whether she would like to continue her tag team in the future.

"I hope so. I'm not really sure what everyone else's vision is," Jay said. "I think us being kind of nicer guys now, it's working out to where I can do more stuff with her because I think they wanted her to be completely face. So I hope we get to. I like tagging with her, and it helps me experience wise kind of get a better feel, and I think it's good to have a tag match every now and then just because I don't know much about tag matches because I'm still learning to be a singles wrestler. I really hope we get too, plus it's fun."

If you use any quotes from this article, please credit Talk Is Jericho with a h/t to Wrestling Inc. for the transcription.