Athena has credited Booker T in helping make The O-Face finisher what it is today.
The AEW star and current Ring of Honor Women’s Champion has won many matches with the high flying manoeuvre, known as The Eclipse in WWE while performing under the name Ember Moon. Athena credits the WWE Hall of Famer with adapting the move so that it is both more visually impressive and a safer landing.
Athena Won The ROH Women’s Championship By Defeating Mercedes Martinez With The O-Face
In an appearance on the Talk is Jericho podcast, the AEW star went into detail about how reluctant she was to perform the move from the top rope. Booker T would persuade Athena to try the move from higher up by being the one to receive the finisher:
“Booker kind of opened my eyes to like high flying and aerial and being kind of not so much an aerialist, but just having diversity within my move set like I was desperately I still am. I’m afraid of heights. I think it’s muscle memory now, but I remember like I was doing the O-Face [Eclipse] off the second rope. And I’ve been doing it for years. And it just was murdering my body on the second rope. I’ve been doing it off the second rope and it just hurt my body because of how quick you have to turn doing it off the second.
“Booker was like, ‘go up to the top’ and I go ‘what? What? No, sir, not for me. Someone’s gonna push me, I’m gonna fall down.’ He’s like, ‘so what? You’ll get up and do it again.’ I was like, What? No. And he was like, ‘Alright, fine. Give the move to me, and that’s the end of it. You’ll be safe, you know.'”
Athena would also credit the unique setup of the 5 time WCW Champion’s facility, stating that students gradually work their way up to the heights of the top rope in a WWE ring:
“So I give it to Booker, Booker takes it and he’s like, all right now you’re doing off the top rope in this ring, which was like the really cool thing about Booker’s [facility] at that time was his, he had a ring with short ropes. And then the step above that would have a little bit taller and a little bit taller. So eventually, you work your way up to a regulation WWE ring at that time, or what we use currently. And it was like, okay, Baby steps, baby steps, baby steps. And that’s kind of how I got the O-Face of the top rope.”
“And I feel like, man, I have all this time to turn now. And it was scary. It was terrifying for the first few times, but like, he kept pushing me to do things that I was uncomfortable doing, which I like immensely thankful for that.”
Athena has been a part of AEW since May 2022, debuting at the Double or Nothing pay-per-view.
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