During an interview with SI.com, AEW stat Britt Baker addressed the controversy over her AEW black eye t-shirt:

“I was very surprised. When I posted the picture of my black eye on social media, it got almost 100,000 likes saying that I’m tough and I’m a badass and, ‘Wow, this girl, she’s strong.’ It was empowering. But then when it went on a shirt, it was really problematic, and that was so confusing to me. Because why? If I’m on a shirt with a black eye, why does that make me weak? Why does that make me a victim? But if a man, or Chris Jericho, had a black eye, they would be seen as tough and they would be a badass. To me, it’s showing the internal narrative that people are saying about women, and that’s that we’re not as strong or as tough as the men, and that’s the real problem here.

It’s not a black eye on a T-shirt. Sometimes I do get hurt. I’ve broken my leg, my wrist, my nose, and guess what? Now I have a black eye and I signed up for that. I’ve actually been telling the makeup artist, ‘Don’t cover up my black eye.’ Because I think it’s empowering, because I’m tough. You should see the other girl.”