AEW Star Britt Baker Reveals The Inspiration Behind Her Role Model Gimmick

In recent months, Britt Baker has added an extra dimension to her character as she turned heel and started using a role model gimmick to gloat in front of the masses. Her new persona has been widely praised, but Baker did receive some criticism online as some fans accused her of stealing the gimmick from SmackDown Women's Champion Bayley who embraced her dark side back in October.

The star from Brittsburgh appeared on the most recent episode of Talk Is Jericho in which she looked to set the record straight on her new gimmick. Britt said: "While we're on the topic of that, no we did not steal the role model gimmick from Bayley, because that's like a daily thing and I know that we've talked about it too about how the inspiration came from you, from Chris Jericho, for the role model gimmick.

"I don't know totally what's going on with Raw and SmackDown because I try to stay in touch with it but at the same time, I'm a dentist and a professional wrestler, I don't know every single storyline that is going on each week. So, it wasn't until I actually said the word 'role model' on TV and then I got the Bayley army coming at me. 'You're stealing her gimmick,' that I even knew that she was even calling herself that too. Granted, totally different uses of the words, totally different gimmicks as we call it. But I just kind of want to set the record straight that no, we didn't steal that from anybody. Well I stole it from you, not from her."

Baker told Bleacher Report that, in particular, Chris Jericho's run in WCW provided the inspiration for her new persona, as she was watching promos of his one night and realised it could be easily applied to herself because of her job as a dentist.

"Oh, my gosh, this delusional, self-proclaimed role model. This could so work for my story," Baker said. "I'm a dentist, I'm a wrestler. I'm this, I'm that. I texted Tony about it, which is so cool that we have such an open communication line with Tony, and he loved it. He's like, 'Oh, my gosh, this is awesome. Let's talk more.'

"Before I talked about it with him more, I wanted to talk to Chris because he would know more about what makes that work than anybody, because he did it. It was the best conversation ever with Jericho. It was before Dynamite one week, and he's just like, 'This could be really, really good for you. I think you definitely need to run with this.'"