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This Sunday, live from London’s O2 Arena, AEW and New Japan Pro Wrestling once again combine forces for Forbidden Door — but this year’s incarnation feels different. The show isn’t just about interpromotional dream matches. It’s become a showcase for the stories and momentum happening within AEW itself. Perhaps no story has built more intrigue than the long-awaited collision between AEW Women’s Champion Toni Storm. who has ascended into perhaps the most talked about AEW performer and her challenger, Athena, undefeated for 68 matches and counting since her Ring of Honor officially kicked into gear.
Athena enters the biggest weekend of her AEW tenure with a staggering championship reign now approaching a thousand days. But for Athena, the road to London hasn’t been about numbers. It’s been about proving something — to herself, to her critics, and to anyone who underestimated what she could become once the “Ember Moon” era was behind her.
“Never in a million years did I foresee any of this happening,” Athena noted to PWInsiderElite.com earlier this week. “I remember doing an interview once saying, ‘Yeah, I don’t know if I’m on All In, hopefully that works out. I’ll be defending my ROH Championship and that’s my focus', and it just blew up. I wasn’t trying to do a woe-is-me thing, but it turned into this crazy movement.”
That grassroots swell — fans championing her work in ROH and demanding it be seen on AEW’s national platform — helped spur Athena forward, but it also provided a platform in an age of immediate gratification for the audience to be forced to be parient and wait for her grand return to the AEW landscape.
“When I got added into the AEW shuffle, it was awesome. It happened around the time we were going to my hometown in Garland, Texas, and I live close to Arlington now. So it was a weird turn of events in a short amount of time. Fans were saying, ‘Why can’t we have this here?’ It was really cool to have that support. I’ve always said, why can’t I do both?”
Now, Athena heads to London representing both companies — the embodiment of Ring of Honor’s legacy and a growing force in AEW with a major marquee bout just days away. When asked about where the bout sits in terms of anticipation for what she wants accomplished at Forbidden Door, Athena's candor was blunt.
“That’s a crazy difficult question to answer, and I know it should be like, ‘No, I’ll be happy if I win the championship.’ But for so long, even when I was on the other side, I never really had a lot of big moments just for myself. So to be put on this pedestal as a singles competitor, not only that, being a singles champion, a history-making champion, going into a stadium show with another history-making champion — as much as she sucks and she’s overrated — it’s a really cool moment for me.”
Athena didn’t hold back when discussing Storm’s presentation or what she views as the difference between them.
“I think people see Timeless Toni Storm and they’re like, ‘Oh, she’s a good wrestler, she does this Bette Midler thing, this 1920s Marilyn Monroe.’ And I look at that and I’m like, that’s so overrated. It’s such a joke. She comes out, she makes sexual innuendos, she flails on the ground. That’s not pro wrestling. That’s not what we do. What we do is kick people in the face. I try to hurt people on a regular basis. That’s my job.”
For Athena, the match is about planting a flag in the ground and reshaping the landscape.
“To beat her would be the best gift in the world. It would give me a lot of gratification to put someone like that down, to show they really aren’t as good as what you guys think. Just ’cause someone flails on the ground in grayscale doesn’t mean they’re the best in the world. I’m the best in the world. I’ve been champion for almost a thousand days. I’m 68-0, and soon to be 69-0. This isn’t about winning championships. It’s about making exclamation points.”
That edge that defines Athena on screen in 2025 was forged in the earliest days of her ROH run. After a rough bout that saw Jody Threat take quite a beating, a wave of online criticism accused her of being overly stiff and unsafe. It was a moment that could have sent Athena into defensive mode. Instead, she doubled down.
“I was flabbergasted at the pushback,”Athena recalled. “This is what I’ve done for years. People only saw the Ember Moon version of me. They never saw what I did on the independents. I beat the tar out of people. We were in Canada, the crowd liked her more than me, and I didn’t like it. That was the start of something special.”
Rather than acknowledge, Athena leaned into the physicality — with a little help from someone very close to her.
“A lot of the flabbergastedness came from people who call themselves visionaries in the sport just ripping me shred by shred when they could have called or texted. But that’s wrestling. We said, ‘Okay, this happened. This is reality now. What can we do to keep pushing forward?’ “I remember saying, ‘No, this is the way I want to go.’ And if that got people clutching their pearls — ‘Oh my God, a woman is being aggressive!’ — then sure, I’ll do it again, night after night. My husband even took away my phone so I couldn’t make some long statement. He said, ‘You’re not doing this. You’ve got something special here.’ And I love him to death for that. It turned the tide of what Athena was going to be in AEW and ROH. It made me unique and different. It made me the forever champ I am today.”
As Forbidden Door brings an influx of international talent from STARDOM, CMLL, and beyond, Athena is excited — but unmoved in her personal mission.
“I thoroughly enjoyed my time in STARDOM. I’m still trying to figure out how I can go back. The amount of talent they have there is insane. But seeing them come here changes nothing. When I have a championship match, we go balls to the wall. It doesn’t matter that Utami is on the show. It doesn’t matter that Bozzilla is on the show. Athena’s going to steal it. AEW — it’s in the name — Athena Elite Wrestling. I’ve said it before, I’ll say it again. I’m here to put me on a pedestal. I’m not worried about anyone else. They should be worried about me.”
Athena wants the locker room as a whole to stand up and take notice when she performs.
“I want people to be intimidated after I wrestle. I want them to say, ‘Oh man, we have to follow that.’ I don’t try for that to be a thing. I just know it’s a reality. It doesn’t matter if you’re Ospreay or Copeland. I want people to know I’m the best in the world — not just the best woman. I work so hard for this. I eat, breathe, sleep this. That’s what I do every time.”
This Sunday, it’s champion vs. champion, Storm vs. steel.
Toni Storm vs. Athena will stream this Sunday on AEW Forbiden Door live from London's O2 Arena.
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