Athena is the reigning Ring of Honor Women’s World Champion, holding the title for 932 days since winning it on December 10, 2022.
If Athena retains her title against Thunder Rosa at Supercard of Honor on July 11, she will approach 1,000 days as champion.
During a recent appearance on “The Takedown” podcast, Athena shared her thoughts on possibly extending her title reign to 1,000 days. The Forever Champion said,
“I never thought it would happen to be honest with you. I think right now I just take it a day at a time, because like…honestly like once I hit a thousand days, mama’s going to call herself the modern day Bruno Sammartino.”
During a recent edition of his “Marking Out” podcast, MVP discussed the evolution of the wrestling industry’s approach to injuries, noting that WWE and AEW have improved their handling of talent injuries over the years.
MVP also recalled a match with Cody Rhodes, which had its duration changed multiple times before being set to run for three segments unexpectedly while Rhodes was already in the ring.
You can check out some highlights from the podcast below:
On his match with Cody Rhodes: “One of my favorite stories…It was a match with me vs. Cody Rhodes. That day, they kept changing our time for the match. So we’re the main event of the NXT show. It’s live. Cody went out first. I just remember hearing [the ring announcer say] ‘Cody Rhodes!’ and then Laurinaitis says, ‘Hey kid, come here…I need two break spots.’ A segment is roughly 8 minutes, and then there’s two minutes of commercial time…We’re still working through those two minutes, so we went from two segments to three [roughly 28-minutes]. One break spot, I remember, was a Superplex, and the other I don’t remember what it was but I gave them two break spots. Cody’s clueless. From across the ring…I hear Cody go, ‘What the f***!’ We come back through the curtain, and Vince takes off the headset, and he’s laughing. That sh** was funny as hell to him. It was a game to him…but if we had f***ed that up, he wouldn’t have been laughing. It wouldn’t have been funny at all…If you want to be on live television, you have to learn to do it on the fly.“
On the change in the industry: “There’s been an evolution. Nowadays, if you work for AEW, if you work for WWE, there is a full medical team backstage… There was a time when, if guys got hurt, they didn’t tell the office that they were hurt because they didn’t want to lose their spot; they didn’t want anyone to know that they’re hurt.”
On Dean Malenko realizing he was hiding a groin injury years ago: “He said ‘It’s either your knee or your groin!’ He had been around a long time and he could tell by how I was moving. ‘It’s your knee or your groin.’ It was both!”
And finally, during a recent appearance on the “AEW Unrestricted” podcast, Josh Alexander discussed his AEW debut and journey to the company.
The former TNA World Champion made his AEW debut on April 16 against Hangman Page in the Owen Hart tournament.
You can check out some highlights from the podcast below:
On the moment: “When I got that pop on that entrance, like I was so nervous,” Alexander said of his debut. “Wrestlers are so insecure at the end of the day. Especially as babyfaces, because having people like you and want to see you is way more difficult than walking out there and, you know, being like, hey, the Boston Celtics are terrible guys.”
On joining AEW: “This is a full circle moment of like I wanted to be here since before this company’s inception. Now that I’m here, it’s just off the races and it’s just building blocks, starting from square one and we’re gonna see where it goes.”
