Bea Priestley sheds a little light on Sadie Gibbs incident.
Following AEW All Out it was reported by Squared Circle Sirens and Fightful Select that Bea Priestley and Sadie Gibbs got into an altercation backstage. The two women competed in the Women's Casino Battle Royale at the event, but didn't exactly sell for each other during the bout.
Speaking to Alex McCarthy of talkSPORT, Priestley wouldn't go into detail about the reported incident, but did say things have been handled.
"The only thing I’ll say about this is people should not believe everything they read on the internet. This has all been handled. There is no problem at all. This was just a small problem that got blown way out of proportion by I don’t even know. No idea how this managed to get out, but, basically, anything online is Chinese whispers, pretty much," she said.
Gibbs and Priestley have not worked on the same AEW show since the incident.
Along with working for AEW, Priestley splits her time with STARDOM, working tours and events when she is needed. Priestley revealed in the interview she is on a part-time contract with AEW and a full-time deal with STARDOM.
"I work full-time in Japan for Stardom and I’m on a part-time contract with All Elite Wrestling. Basically, All Elite just tell me the dates they want me for, I’ll fly out for those and now that Dynamite is on a Wednesday and most Stardom shows are on a weekend, it works out quite nicely. So I’m AEW and Stardom and I don’t really miss any shows for either," she said. "I find that AEW is a great learning experience for me. It’s nothing like anything I’ve ever done before, and I had never wrestled in America before AEW either. A lot of fans had been asking me for years when am I going to America, but I felt like I wanted the right time to do it. With Japan, I get to wrestle some of the best females that I’ve certainly ever seen wrestle and get that experience from them. I love the Japanese style as well. So it’s kind of getting the balance of learning how to work on television but also coming to Japan and learning how to wrestle Joshi style matches as well."
Prior to signing with AEW, WWE had reported interest in Priestley to join the NXT UK. Even though some of her best friends ended up joining WWE, Priestley went elsewhere, worried she would be lost in the shuffle in NXT UK.
"It was very difficult because, Toni Storm, she is one of my best friends ever. And also, I’ve got a very strong bond with Kay Lee [Ray] and Viper [Piper Niven]; Piper and I are a tag team in Japan and I’ve got a lot of working experience with Kay Lee, but, at the time when they offered me a contract, I already knew that Piper and Kay Lee had signed. So for me, I didn’t think that I was never going to have a spotlight on me because they had just signed two of the top girls in the UK. So I was going to be signed as a mid-carder and it would have taken me a while to get the spotlight on me. So in my head, I was like ‘Ok, if I stay away – I still want to get a lot more experience in Japan – I still have a lot of other things I want to do’, for me, that was the best decision for me," she said.
Priestley is 0-2 in AEW, having lost tag team matches on the first episode of AEW Dark and the second episode of AEW Dynamite. She's currently working the Stardom Goddesses Of Stardom Tag League 2019. It is unknown when she will return to AEW television.
