Denis Salcedo held a recent interview with ROH Women’s World Champion Athena. One of the topics discussed included Athena’s thoughts about how she had pushed AEW CEO Tony Khan to give Maya World an opportunity in AEW.
“Maya was one of the first women that were in the Texas area that I avidly went after. I saw her on a show and I was like, man, there’s something there. Like, there’s something really special. The way she moved, the way she performed, she was just missing a couple beats. So, I had invited her to come train with me and she had been training with me for almost three years.
I remember just trying to get her in front of TK at one point in time. And I remember having her first match on like an AEW show. I can’t remember if it was like a Dynamite, Collision, Dark, I can’t really remember. But I remember being like, ‘Yo, TK, you got to see this girl.’”
Athena also gave her thoughts about how she had asked Khan to give World a match with her and how World called her in the middle of the night after she got signed to AEW.
“I was like, ‘Just give her a match with me. Let me show you what she can do.’ You know? And I mean, we had this match. She lost because I’m the trainer. And I remember they kept bringing her back. They kept bringing her back, and it just took that one step.
Soon enough, when the moment came, she took advantage of an opportunity and she ended up with a contract. And I remember she called me at like 2 a.m. And she called me like six times and I was like, ‘Oh my God, this must be an emergency.
She’s like, ‘I did it. I did it.’ I was like, ‘Girl, it’s so loud. What are you doing? What did you do?’ And she’s like, ‘I got signed. They offered me a contract.’ And I remember, very off the record because Athena sheds no tears for no one, but I just cried because I was like, ‘Oh, thank goodness she did it. It didn’t take her 10 years like it took me.’”
Transcript h/t: F4WOnline.com
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