Willow Nightingale discusses her work with ROH and main-eventing ROH Wrestling against Athena.
Nightingale wrestled on ROH programming throughout 2021, when Maria Kanellis and Bobby Cruise launched the company’s women’s division. ROH went on hiatus at the end of the year, but Tony Khan acquired the company in March 2022. Nightingale has competed at every ROH pay-per-view in the new era, and she has been involved with the return of the company’s television show. She faced ROH Women’s World Champion Athena on the March 9 episode.
Speaking on Busted Open Radio, Nightingale commented on being involved with the new ROH and main-eventing the March 9 episode of ROH Wrestling.
“Being a part of Ring of Honor has been rewarding to see the way that it’s been rebooted,” Nightingale said. “For me, when I first started working there was when Maria Kanellis and Bobby Cruise had really launched there being a women’s division in Ring of Honor. Cary Silkin, who used to own it, had actually pulled me aside and a few of the other girls during that era, the Maria era, he was like, ‘You know, you guys are awesome. We’ve had a lot of really great women walk through these doors, but we’ve never had a division like this before.’
” So for me, all about women empowerment, feminism, I’m was like, ‘Hell yeah, I love to hear that.’ I was a little crushed when we were told that we wouldn’t be continuing on with Ring of Honor, so to be a part of this new regime is exciting. It’s a fresh take on it. We’ve already featured women. I think we’ve had two women’s matches in each episode, and last night, Athena and I main-evented, which is awesome. Not only two women, you’ve got two black women main-eventing your second show ever. So I think that is, for some people, that doesn’t matter, it’s like, ‘Whatever, it’s just a match.’ But for people who grew up like me and didn’t see stuff like that, we’ve come a long way baby [laughs].
Nightingale then agreed with the sentiment that, hopefully, these milestones will be an everyday occurrence someday.
“That’s the goal. That’s I think the future that I would love for it to be, to kind of break down the barriers in a way where we don’t have to look at things with qualifiers as much,” Nightingale said. “I think it’s important to have a sense of identity, like I love being a part of the women’s division. I love representing women, I love representing women like me. But I also don’t love that some people look at me, and they just other me. They’re like, ‘You’re good for this,’ or ‘You’re good for that.’ So as much as I’m happy to be representation, I understand that there’s a lot of weight to that.”
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