Since 2019, All Elite Wrestling has been slowly growing their women’s division into one that can rival their main competitor of WWE. This has included signing former women’s champions from WWE, with the likes of Toni Storm, Saraya, and Athena all proving to be massive signings for AEW. When it comes to Athena, she wasn’t sure if she wanted to continue wrestling after WWE – but a match with Thunder Rosa got her back in the mood to compete.
Athena Reveals Match That Got Her Interest From Impact Wrestling & AEW
While speaking with Chris Jericho on the Talk is Jericho podcast, Athena would reveal that wrestling Thunder Rosa was key in getting her to continue going in the industry. Athena would have the following to say.
“‘Thunder Rosa.’ I threw out a name because I recently met her and she was awesome. I went down to Mission Pro and worked out to see if I still wanted to wrestle. She got me some really good girls to roll around with. We went broadway, 30 minutes, and it was so much fun. I was so emotional after because it was like, ‘I thought I was going to throw this all away again.’
It got the bug going and that’s when I told my rep, ‘Let’s do it, if he wants me let’s do it.’ It became, IMPACT wanted me, there was interest at AEW but we could never get ahold of Tony because he’s so busy. IMPACT would be like, ‘Hey, hey girl, hey.’ ‘Yeah, yeah, I know, hold on.’ My friends would be like, ‘Girl, I heard you’re coming here.’ ‘We’ve not talked to them. We only said, hey, we’ll talk to you next week.’
It became this weird, where do I go? What do I do? I had two companies showing interest and it was like, ‘I think I want to go to AEW. I have friends at IMPACT, but I want to do AEW because I’ve had my eye on it for so long.’ Fast forward to May, it happened so quickly. Tony called my rep, ‘Let’s do it.’ Within the next week, I was on a plane to Las Vegas.”
Patience Was Virtue With The New ROH Women’s World Champion
Since signing with AEW, Athena has had numerous big title matches, challenging for the TBS & AEW Women’s World Championships on PPV, before winning the ROH Women’s World Championship from Mercedes Martinez at ROH Final Battle 2022. Athena has not been in the ring since Final Battle, but is expected to be a key figure in ROH in 2023 with the launch of their weekly TV show on HonorClub.
It took Athena a little while to put together a persona that worked following her WWE release, but AEW remaining patient with her has paid off in a massive way. She could easily become one of their key female talents for the next decade, with many years as a top talent likely ahead.
Will Athena ever become the AEW Women’s World Champion? Let us know what you think in the comment section down below.
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