Shawn Dean Discusses His Extra Coordinator Role, Jokingly Encourages Wrestlers To Bother Carlie Bravo Instead

Shawn Dean and Carlie Bravo speak about opportunities in wrestling.

As many fans know, Shawn Dean has been the Extras Coordinator for AEW since 2021, as he took the role just weeks after Tony Khan announced that he had officially signed with the company.

Since then, Dean has likely been a popular name in various locker rooms. Speaking with Fightful for a new interview, Carlie Bravo said that multiple names approached him at WrestleCade to get in contact with Shawn Dean.

“We was at WrestleCade. Everybody kept pulling me [aside], they won’t go to him. They come to me, ‘Yo, yo, you know we gonna be in your city. Can you talk to Shawn?’ Every single time. That’s the worst thing to do, by the way. The absolute worst thing. I’m never gonna tell him. It’s terrible.”

Dean was very upfront about the situation, saying that people should know how to get in contact him.

“I think the people that know, they know how to get [a hold of me]. I’m not hard to get a hold of. I don’t know why. You would think I was a mean person the way they come to him sometimes. I mean, I can’t get back to all the emails. There’s too many. I probably would never say that, ‘Man, I saw that email and I just ignored it.’ I never ignore them. It’d just be a lot. But I do see everything. I do say that, Cap cares. Always remember that. Cap sees a lot of stuff and I try to make stuff happen when it happens. Just gotta make sense too, you know? But don’t ever feel discouraged. Keep bothering Bravo. That’s cool with me.”

Dean continued on and named a few wrestlers that he brought in after seeing their potential.

“Sky Blue, Willow, DG, Lee Moriarty, Trish, Queen Aminata, the Outrunners. That’s just the recent ones. I could go on the other side of the game too. I can go on multiple sides of the game and just name drop some of the people. I never take credit like I trained them or did anything for them, but it was just people who I saw who had, in wrestling, we say ‘It,’ you know what saying? They had something. There was something about them that was different and I always wanted to continue to give them opportunities to show why they are who they are portraying themselves to be. A lot of the times, I would say, for me, it does work out eventually. It may not be with us. It may be on the other side. It may be on another side. But it definitely people who I’ve believed in and gave multiple opportunities to, they have made good on those opportunities and are signed somewhere doing very well for themselves right now. I do take a lot of pride in that because I think before I came in, and I could be wrong, but I think I’ve given a lot of opportunities to a lot of people on an independent level that they never would have probably saw in their entire career. I do take pride in giving those people those opportunities to shine and show that their training and everything that they’re doing does eventually at some point pay off. It may not pay off when they want it to, but eventually the more you keep at it, the more you keep going, it will pay out.”

Dean continued naming wrestlers that he brought in for extra work, speaking specifically about current NXT stars this time.

“Yeah, Thea Hall is definitely one of those people that’s on the other side that’s doing very well. Kiana James. Stacks, he’s doing very well. Saquon Shugars. Je’Von, like all these people, they’re doing very well. I’m very proud of them and very happy that they’re able to go and showcase themselves and that their hard work paid off when they were here on our side of the game at AEW and that it paid off for them down the line. That’s the kind of stuff that I’m talking about. Like just people who were able to showcase themselves and be able to get themselves in a prominent position in this game. That’s what we all work hard for.”

Dean finished off the topic by explaining his scouting process.

“We don’t play around. We got to get in the trenches. That’s what I be saying. I’m in a trench and I’m not faking it with nobody. I’m in a trench. I want to see what’s going on. That’s the only way I’m going see it, if I see it for myself. I can see a bunch of tapes and clips online, but if I could see that raw product and get people out there to put on quick matches, three minute matches or whatever it is when I go do some of these seminars and things like that, it’s just to see. That’s the game. I wanna see how you move, your psychology, what’s going on. So yeah, we definitely get out there and it’s good for us to get some reps. We love this game, we gotta get out there. We wanna see, we wanna go against the best every time we go out and find future stars while we at it.”

Elsewhere in the interview, Carlie Bravo and Shawn Dean recalled meeting each other at the Nightmare Factory school. Fans can check out his full comments here.

Fans can also check out Fightful’s full interview with Bravo and Dean in the video linked at the top of this article.