Saraya joined AEW at Dynamite Grand Slam in September 2022 to much fanfare and she had been a beloved figure on WWE television before not being used and then parting ways with the company.
Saraya returned to the ring at AEW Full Gear, competing in her first match since December 2017. Leading up to the match, Saraya rubbed fans the wrong way with some of her promo material. The material ended up being the first seeds in a heel turn that became official at the start of 2023 when she and Toni Storm attacked Willow Nightingale.
Speaking to TalkSPORT, Saraya recalled the origin of The Outcasts.
"It kind of started falling together because Tony (Khan) put all these different matches together and there wasn't really a story to them right after me and Britt were done, and then they just started going together. Toni was like, 'I want to turn heel.' Tony Khan did this thing where he was like, 'We have to do this promo with (Hikaru) Shida. We did this backstage with Shida where I had to tell Toni, 'Hey, I want you to be my partner.' I told Tony Khan, because he was there for it, 'Do you care if I turn my back to Shida? I feel it's really shitty to do. It might come across as a little heelish,' but I kind of wanted to turn heel. He was like, 'Sure.' We did it. 'I love it. It was hilarious.' Shida was so great with her response. Then he started seeing me and Toni together more and more and we started building this tag team where we were more obsessed with each other and started hating everybody else. 'Okay, we need to bring one more person in,' because they wanted to eventually do the six-person. We were talking about Ruby. Ruby is ex-WWE with an outsider kind of thing, and I love to give nods to NWO, they are one of my favorite factions," she said before referencing the use of green spray paint and how she loves paying homage to New World Order and DX.
When it was brought up that fans consider The Outcasts a rip-off of the NWO or D-Generation X, but they will praise Bullet Club, Saraya replied, "I'm telling you, it's when girls do shit or when I do something. It's so easy for me to be a heel because they just hate me. They really have this blood boiling hate for me, and I don't know why. Easy money though. You're giving me the easiest paycheck of my career. I don't have to do shit to piss you off. Anytime we do it, or a female does something, it's like, 'You're a rip off.' Calm down, we're having fun. All three of us are having so much fun that we don't give a crap about what anyone is saying. We're having fun, we're enjoying ourselves, we love it, and you're making us laugh and smile when you hate us so much because this is so easy."
Saraya noted that they recently made a reference to The Shield with the triple bomb and they'll keep doing references to other groups since it's easy heat.
Outcast members Storm & Soho will take on Britt Baker & Jamie Hayter on Wednesday's AEW Dynamite.
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