Willow Nightingale is proud that she has been able to do cool things.
AEW star and CMLL World Women's Champion Willow Nightingale has cemented her status as one of the top competitors in women's wrestling in recent years. The former AEW TBS Champion is on a short list of women's wrestlers who have won titles in America, Mexico, and Japan, and the rarity of this success is not lost on her.
Speaking on Close Up with Renee Paquette, Willow Nightingale discussed her experience wrestling for CMLL and NJPW.
“I didn’t have the opportunity to go to Japan, it didn’t come up until I had just gotten signed to AEW. So I did a quick ten-day tour, and I told myself, ‘Well, that’ll probably be it because now I’m just gonna be at TV week in and week out,’ and we have some great partners in New Japan and CMLL. If anything, it just started, and so I’ve been able to really live these lifelong dreams that I didn’t think were possible once I got signed. I try to be aware of things as I’m living in them, like let it sink in. I do try, but sometimes it’s hard because we live so fast, it’s like, okay, what’s next? What’s the next day? Where do I have to fly? But the thing that really hit me, like I am a crybaby, I’m sentimental, but I don’t cry about wrestling a lot. The first time I cried about wrestling in probably over five years, since I broke my neck, was I read something online about how I was one of the first women to hold a major championship for a Japanese company, an American company, and a Mexican company, three major championships. That was the moment that I was like, ‘Holy shit,’ and I sat in my car and I cried because it sunk in, like, ‘Oh, you’re doing really cool stuff.’ I’m just proud. It just kind of made me realize the scope of it all," Nightingale said.
Nightingale noted that joining Bull Nakano, Akira Hokuto, and Ayako Hamada on that short list of women to hold titles in the United States, Mexico, and Japan meant a lot to her.
Nightingale is set to compete at AEW All In; she and Tomohiro Ishii will face Kris Statlander and Stokely Hathaway.
Fightful will have coverage of AEW Dynamite as it airs on August 21st, as well as a post-show podcast on our YouTube channel.
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