Pro-wrestling star and former NXT women’s champion Athena (Ember Moon) spoke about this past weekend’s Warrior Wrestling on her Twitch stream, where she took on AEW’s Thunder Rosa. Aside from the match Athena discussed the heckling that she and Rosa were victims of, adding that she never lets those things get to her unless someone uses the N-word. Highlights are below.
Says she has been heckled before:
“We have to talk about the asshole fan. No one knows what he said, but me, and I feel some type of way about it. I don’t know if you guys could hear it. We have to talk about this crazy fan. It’s been six or seven years since I’ve been on the Indies. When I first started out, I wrestled for XCW and they called me one of the worst nicknames I’ve ever been called since I was a bad guy. They used to call me, ‘chick with a dick.’ That’s what the fans heckled me as. I was an 18-year-old and buff, way more buff because I played soccer all the time. It was weird hearing the backlash of someone making fun of me. I’ve been called everything in the book. I’m from Texas. The only thing I really have a problem with is the N-word. That was the first thing I was called and because I was 18, ‘oh, I’m over with the crowd.’ Now, probably not the best thing for people to say because the world has changed and we’ve gotten more PC and we’re more understanding of people’s feelings. This is what happened; we were in the match and someone said I had a bad weave. That’s what happened.”
On the heckler’s comments:
“Apparently, there were others, there was someone else that called us ‘putas,’ or whatever. They said I had a bad weave, or at least this is what I heard. If there is something more than this, mind you, Rosa and I talked after, this is what she was complaining about. You have to come at me a lot harder for me to be upset, especially when my weave probably costs more than what you make in a week. I wasn’t really bothered or affected because I don’t care. I wasn’t offended, but I’m not the type of person to let things get to them. I worked for WWE. I’m used to being fat-shamed, called a talentless hack, every name under the sun, being called a ‘race trader’ for marrying my lovely husband. I have been called everything known to man. So you saying my hair doesn’t look good, doesn’t bother me whatsoever.”
How she doesn’t understand how heckling has changed:
“I don’t understand because when I went to wrestling shows, we heckled, we said ‘oh you suck’ ‘oh your pants don’t fit.’ Whatever popped our head. Is that not allowed anymore? I’d rather you be so involved, let’s not be derogatory, fat-shaming — Even if you fat-shamed I probably would’ve jumped over the barricade and been like, ‘you get in there and do it then.’ I wasn’t bothered by it. It was fun. Heckling is fun. At what point did it change to ‘you can’t make observatory statements?’ I didn’t feel like it crossed a line. I personally didn’t feel it because I know how hard I worked on my hair. We got to the back and the promoter of the show was like, ‘next time it happens, we’ll toss him out.’ I hope the guy didn’t get thrown out. I talked to Rosa about it. It’s such a minor no comment to me. Everyone was making such a big deal about it. I was like, ‘Wow, I have been called far worse in my personal life, not even at a show.’ Like I said, I haven’t been on the Indies in seven years, I’ve been in this WWE bubble that WWE has created where only WWE fans will reach out and say, ‘You’re fat, you need to go the gym. You’re overrated. You’re boring,’ whatever they want to say that day of the week.”
(H/T and transcribed by Fightful)