Over the last decade, only Roman Reigns can argue to being as dominant a champion as Athena has been, holding the ROH Women's World Championship for nearly four years while setting all sorts of records along the way. And it's the drive that led Athena to becoming the "Forever Champion" that makes her want even more, this time in AEW. In an interview with "The Dallas Morning News" to promote AEW's upcoming "Dynamite" episode in the area, Athena revealed that she wants to conquer AEW as she has ROH."It's finally time for me to make that forever as well," Athena said.Athena noted her ambitions doesn't mean she's taken her run in ROH for granted, just that it has driven her to do more in AEW as well. And by do more, Athena doesn't mean just winning one championship, it means winning every single AEW women's championship the promotion has to offer."I feel like I've given the world to Ring of Honor," Athena said. "I've given years of my career being the 'forever' ROH champion. I've given so much to be the longest reigning champion in the modern day era, the most violent champion of the era. But when it comes to me, I want to do more with AEW. So this means more. I want to be AEW women's champion. I want to be AEW TBS champion. I want to be an AEW tag champion to show the world that everything that I've done, holding a whole company on my back, climbing to the top of the mountain with it, was all worth it."
Among the great debates surrounding AEW over the last few years is whether or not Athena should be appearing more, an argument perhaps strengthened by her great run as ROH Women's World Champion. At times, I've been in favor of her just sticking with ROH, a brand in need of having a guaranteed, high caliber wrestler of Athena's stature, and at other times I've thought, at the very least, AEW could be doing a better job of splitting Athena's time between the two promotions. Right now though? I am of the mind that it is time for Athena to become a full-time member of the AEW roster...but only after she drops the ROH Women's World Championship to either Billie Starkz or Maya World in the near distant future.To be clear, Athena could come up to AEW full-time still as ROH Women's World Champion and then drop the belt later as well. I'm just not sure it's going to hit the same, however, if she is on AEW TV, at times having to lose if they're not going to belt her up immediately. In my opinion, I would like to see Athena make a total clean break from ROH before going up, and the only way to do that is for her to bring her ROH Women's Title reign to a close against one of her two proteges. Doesn't even matter which one it is; I'd probably go with Starkz as World is now already established, but you can make a strong argument either way. Regardless of who it is though, I'm getting the title off Athena first, then I'm bringing her into AEW full-time and pretty much doing exactly what I did with her in ROH; making her absolutely dominant. Maybe I'm wrong, but I think works better if her unfinished business in ROH is concluded first. With that out of the way, it'll allow Athena to be the star we all figure she can be in AEW, with no strings attached.
