On the October 17 episode of AEW Dark: Elevation, Athena took on Jody Threat in singles competition. Athena was victorious in the hard-hitting affair, but many fans online thought Athena was being too rough with Jody in how she was hitting her and tossing her around.
The match was a turning point for Athena, who developed a more aggressive style in the ring.
Speaking to Chris Jericho on Talk is Jericho, Athena reflected on the match and fans thinking she went took liberties.
"They put me against Jody Threat, she's a hometown hero, she's done all these death matches. She loves that hard-hitting style and I'm very familiar with her work. We go, we have this match, and I remember they were like, 'this might happen.' 'Ah, this won't happen,' and then it did. 'Okay, cool, I'll be the aggressor at this point.' The crowd was so behind her, no matter what I did, they were booing. I remember getting to the back. I was fine, she was fine. It was a stiff match. We got to the back, and they thought I took liberties, which is weird because I never...well...not in this case. I've never done that, and it's never been my intention. if I did, they wouldn't get up. It was solid, nothing was unsafe, I wasn't taking liberties. It was just, 'we need to get back on the same page.' It was weird because people were like, 'Are you guys good?' She's like, 'Yeah, I'm fine.' I go to catering, and it's crickets. They came, and talked to both of us separately. 'Alright, I guess everything is fine.' I remember someone going, 'What's next? That was awesome.' Huh, what is next? Okay. The next day, we had two days in Toronto, 'You know what, I should just throw girls out to the floor. That's what I should do.' 'Maybe that should be your gimmick.' It became this weird, 'there's something to this.' I did a formal pitch and it was 'Yeah, let's do it.' Just being the aggressor and working tough. 'If you guys thought I was frustrated, let's build on that and keep doing this,'" she said.
Fightful Select reported that officials spoke with Athena and Jody after the bout.
Athena continued, "It was really cool because there were so many people who had ideas. Christopher Daniels has been awesome. Sonjay (Dutt) has been awesome. (Ari) Davairi has been awesome. Just piling on these ideas on how to make this grow and be better. I feel I wouldn't have had that there [in WWE]. There was so much growth and trust in it, and it's turned me into what I am now and I feel I'm finally getting back to where I was on the Indies, and I'm more comfortable with that because I was a bad guy. I was a bad guy for 10 years on the Indies, then I was a babyface, which is weird, I don't like being the babyface. It's not fun for me."
Jericho mentioned his hard-hitting matches against the likes of Tomohiro Ishii, Jon Moxley, and Bryan Danielson, and then referenced Athena's past comments where she stated no one would have had a problem with her match against Threat if they were men.
"I took a lot of offensive to it. I've seen dudes, even in WWE or the Indies, they'll chop each other until they are ground beef. I hit this one girl solid, no marks on her, 'oh my gosh, clutch your pearls.' It was like, 'I'm going to piss you off now.' That's what we do, we tell stories. If that makes you upset, fine, come watch me do it again. I'm not going to have any regrets. Sometimes you have to embrace it versus trying to defend yourself. If I tried defending myself on any level, people are going to believe what they want and say what they want to say. Even when stuff hit dirt sheets, people had their opinion, but they did watch the next show. It's about growing and making something memorable. I do thank Jody Threat for making Athena, Athena again. Maybe one day we'll get back to it, but without her, this wouldn't have happened. The whole discourse, which is such a professional word for bullshit, is crazy because I just want to show people what we can do. I hit my friends harder than I hit Jody Threat. I can take it as well as I put it out there. It's sometimes a little irritating because you have the fans that want to be more than fans that think they know every little intricate detail of what we do. If you want to know, hop in a ring, I'll show you," she stated.
Athena has flourish with her new aggressive style, going on to win the ROH Women's Championship against Mercedes Martinez at ROH FInal Battle.
Elsewhere during the interview, Athena revealed IMPACT Wrestling was interested in her when she was a free agent following her WWE release. You can find her full comments by clicking here.
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