[Ladies of the Indies] Alicia Atout: ‘I just really want to keep growing’
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This is an interview I have wanted to bring to this site since I started over a year ago. I have been a fan of this girl since 2016, and have looked up to her as a fellow Canadian. She is not a wrestler, but her story is just as interesting. I am so excited and honored to tell the story of the “Interview Queen,” Alicia Atout.
Atout is the owner of the AMBY YouTube channel, and over the past few years has interviewed wrestling royalty. Names range from the likes of Kenny Omega, Chris Jericho, The Young Bucks, Rey Mysterio, and so much more.
So how did the biggest wrestling and music interviewer on YouTube begin this assent to the top? Well, she did so as a terrified teenager, looking for something to do. “I started posting stuff online because I got really bored during school.” she shared.
For Atout, this was seen as nothing more than a creative outlet, and hobby. However, it started to grow after she did her first interview. “I went to a concert, and my dad was like, ‘Why don’t you ask them two questions?'”
Although she was terrified, she did it. This marked the beginning of her interviewing career. “I was really scared, I hated public speaking.” After this interview, she started looking into the proper way to set up Interviews and started posting to YouTube in 2013. The concept terrified her in the beginning, “I thought ‘oh gosh I’m posting this online where 10 people can see it or 10 million people can see it,’”
As Atout did more interviews she found her confidence and decided this was what she wanted to do.
Her YouTube channel “AMBY” started to gain steam very fast. “I started to realize people are really tuning into this.” Although she knew what an interviewer did because she was thrown into it, she didn’t look up to anybody. Atout quickly created her own style and it worked.
Although she did not have any interview inspirations early on, she does look up to some people now. “The people I looked up to recently were Renee Young and Gene Okerlund.”
She started as a music interview, in fact, AMBY stands for “A Music Blog, Yeah?” However, being a wrestling fan herself, she realized there was a crossover. “I was doing a ton of music interviews and these bands would start throwing around these [wrestling] inside jokes.”
After making this realization she decided to add wrestling to her channel. Breaking into wrestling wouldn’t be as hard for Atout as it was for music due to her experience. “That made the wrestling aspect easier. I wasn’t starting from zero.” Atout was invited to a Ring of Honor pay-per-view in 2016 and did 10 interviews in the course of two hours. These interviews included some of the best wrestlers in the world including The Young Bucks, Kenny Omega, and Will Osprey.
This would launch the “Interview Queen” into the wrestling business, and she would start to establish herself. Fast forward to 2019, and Alicia Atout signed a multi-year deal with Major League Wrestling (MLW).
Although she had other offers on the table, MLW felt right. “You have to be fully comfortable with the choice you make.” That choice ended up being MLW, who she has an on-screen role every week. She was invited down for a screen test, and she said: “I went down, and it just felt right.”
Prior to the deal with MLW, it was announced on various websites that Atout had signed with All Elite Wrestling. This however, was not the case. “I never once came out and said I was signed with them.” Although there is certainly no bad blood between Atout and the owners of AEW, she made it clear that there was never anything signed. Talks did take place, but MLW is her home. From the production, to how the business is run, Atout could not be happier. “MLW is amazing.” she expressed.
You can see Alicia on her YouTube channel AMBY as well as MLW every week. Although she is already massively successful in both the music and wrestling industry, she does still have goals. She wants her YouTube channel to be “the page that everybody knows.” Her main goal is simple, but one that is extremely important to her. “I want to be the best at my job. I want everybody to know my name.”
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About Post Author
Hey Austin I’m Stefan and I’d just like to say I’m really inspired by what people like Alicia and you do. You guys are leaving my dream, I too have a passion for combat sports and would just like to encourage you two to keep doing what you love it is really inspiring and refreshing. Please pass the message along to Alicia when you get the chance. Thanks again, keep soaring ????????