Athena is the reigning ROH Women's Champion who has been seen in a different light since joining AEW and finding her groove even further in ROH.
Athena built her name on the independent scene by taking risks before she was signed by WWE in 2015. She was trained at Reality of Wrestling, which is run by Booker T and has also churned out Roxanne Perez and reigning ROW Diamonds Division Champion Hyan.
Speaking to Jeremy Lambert & Joel Pearl on In The Weeds, Hyan discussed working with Athena and her come up.
"First of all, I don't think Athena gets enough credit for how talented she is. She has such a good wrestling mind and she watches all wrestling. Even when she was in WWE, she was following the independents, so she knew what was out there. I don't think she gets enough credit for how insanely talented she is and how insanely athletic she is. That girl can move and her movements are so snappy. That's not very common to have that kind of movement and body control. When I was getting ready to have my first matches, she was already signed to WWE. When I was training at Reality of Wrestling, her name would come up a lot because she was the big name who came out of that school. I just wanted to be like her so badly. She's kind of a role model to me or someone that I can see like, I love her career, and I would love to have a career like hers. I think she deserves all her flowers. Getting in the ring with her was such a great experience because there are not a lot of women that you can get in the ring with and truly learn from. She is someone you can learn from. Even if it's a five or six-minute match, anyone who gets in the ring with her will walk away a better wrestler," she said.
Hyan got in the ring with Athena on the March 16 episode of ROH Television in a Proving Grounds match. Athena was victorious, but Hyan walked away a better wrestler.
Elsewhere during the interview, Hyan discussed working on motion capture for WWE 2K23. You can find her full comments by clicking here.
Watch the full interview with Hyan in the video above.
