Willow Nightingale on Women’s Casino Gauntlet Match at AEW All In Texas Left Her in ‘Flurry of Emotions’, Potential of AEW Debuting Women’s Tag Titles, Interest in More Intergender Wrestling in AEW

Blavity held a recent interview with Willow Nightingale. One of the topics discussed included Nightingale’s thoughts about how the Women’s Casino Gauntlet match at AEW All In Texas left her in a “fury of emotions” over what the match meant to AEW’s Womens division.

“I literally cried the moment the bell rang and the match was over, just because it was a flurry of emotions. I think holding it together all day, realizing how big the moment was — not just for myself, but our whole division. To have a match that spotlights all of us and gives us the time, and it’s on the main card. And just being there at the start of that match and watching it all unfold in front of me…the moment it was done, I was like, OK, release everything. That was the biggest, oh, OK, we’re going up the rollercoaster, and now here’s the emotional explosion.”

Nightingale also gave her thoughts about the potential of AEW introducing a new Women’s Tag Team Championship in the future.

“[The women’s division] has been making up a lot of time with tags, and we’ve been doing these all-star tags. I think if it’s there, if you’re already putting these types of matches out, reward us, give us something to fight for. I think it would be really cool.”

Nightingale also gave her thoughts about how AEW CEO Tony Khan once told her and Kris Statlander to walk to the ring like The Road Warriors and her thinking about the two of them possibly wrestling in a Goddess of Stardom Tag League tournament.

“He was like, yeah, you guys go down to the ring like you’re big, bad, tough, you’re cool like The Road Warriors. Go out there and do it! Let’s go. It put it in my head, I was like, oh my God, if that’s how you would view Stat and I, the peak would be to do [Goddesses of Stardom] Tag League over at Stardom. I think that would be so cool.”

Nightingale also gave her thoughts about her belief that AEW’s women’s roster has the depth needed to pull off a tag team championship division.

“I think we have the chemistry within the locker room between teams and alliances to make it happen and make it exciting. Also, AEW is built on tag team wrestling. Our founders are the Young Bucks, and I think tag team matches are really some of our best matches. Let’s get some women’s tag matches up there as the best matches you’ve ever seen. I do think we have the depth in the locker room to pull it off.”

Nightingale also gave her thoughts about getting to compete in an Anarchy in the Arena match at this past May’s Double or Nothing 2025 event and her and Marina Shafir being the first women in AEW history to compete in that type of match.

“I think Anarchy In The Arena, along with really any big moment in my career, you don’t realize the gravity of it until you’re on the other side. Looking around the room and seeing who I was teaming with was mind-boggling. I saw on Twitter somebody referred to us as, if AEW had assembled their Avengers, this is the team that they would’ve picked. And I was like, that’s crazy. To look around at people like that — [Samoa] Joe, Kenny [Omega], really everyone on the team. When you look around and think about how these are people that you’ve admired for years, and then you’re like, oh, but I am not just looking up to them. I am their peer. I am just as deserving of being here as they are, but I still do obviously know that they’re so much more experienced than I and have so much more knowledge to hand down to me. In those weeks when I was working with the guys, I was just trying to absorb as much as possible — whether that just be the way that they command themselves, the way that they speak to other people, the way that they view and present themselves. I felt like that was a very important thing that I tried to pick up on. Because in women’s wrestling, now it’s changing a little bit where you will see women having much longer careers. But when you’re looking at veterans of wrestling for 20-plus years, you don’t come across that in other women very often. You’re not seeing it in the locker room — how somebody with that much experience under their belt presents and carries themselves.”

Nightingale also gave her thoughts about her interest in seeing more intergender wrestling in AEW.

“The first time I felt like I really kind of got to mix it up was when I tagged with Swerve [Strickland] against Marina and Mox to the point that they both put hands on us as well, which I think was the thing that really shattered down that barrier, made the little crack to have it open up for Anarchy In The Arena. It’s something that I wear with pride to be one of the people that really helped push the boundaries. There are so many people that paved the way for intergender wrestling to happen on television in such a way. I can’t say that I know what’s going to happen or that it will happen, but personally, having been any part of it, if it does happen, it would be really cool. It would mean a lot.”