Athena (Formerly Ember Moon) On Safety ‘Double Standard’ In WWE

WWE

According to Athena, formerly known as Ember Moon, fashion recommendations aren’t the only ‘double standard’ in WWE.

While other comments made headlines from Athena’s appearance on Chris Van Vliet on Insight, one other contrast between WWE and the indies she recalled was having to demonstrate that she wasn’t going to get hurt doing a spot.

Athena recalled having the help of Natalya, with her makeup half done and everything, to demonstrate for Vince McMahon that she could safely do the Eclipse off of a ladder, saying:

“There were times where they were like, ‘girls, don’t fall over.’ It was such a fight to do the Eclipse off the ladder. That was a fight. I tried to do it the first year at Money in the Bank and they were like, ‘this is too unsafe, you’re gonna hurt yourself.’ I go, ‘I’ve done this seven times on the Indies with less safety measures! I’m good.’ The next year, there was some stuff that happened, and they’re like, ‘girls don’t fall down and hurt yourselves.’ ‘Who are you talking to? I’ve done dumber stuff…’ WWE is so careful, mind you, they don’t want us to get hurt. On some level, they have to remember that some of us have done the dumb stuff that got us hurt and we learned from that and made it safer. The Eclipse off the ladder the second year, the doors were about to open and Vince was like, ‘she can’t do it unless I see it first.’ Nattie has like one eyelash on, she’s running from makeup to do it. We do it one time and he’s like, ‘Okay, they’re fine.'”

Athena went on to describe feeling like there was a difference in the way that the women’s and men’s roster were treated in regards to doing certain spots which she described as a ‘double standard,’ saying:

 “Sometimes, it’s too much safety, I feel like. He’s always looking out for our best interests, but when it comes to the men, they never do that. Doing crazy spots and jumping off of stuff, it’s not something the women get to do very often, or rarely. For me to be able to jump off the ladder and do the Eclipse, it was like, ‘Are they going to veto this again? Kevin (Owens) jumped off the tron two weeks ago, but I can’t jump off a ladder in a ladder match?’ It’s so weird, the things the guys can do. ‘It’s Kofi (Kingston), let him do it.’ Then the girls are like, ‘Okay, ladies, we have to have rehearsal so you don’t get hurt.’ Sometimes, it’s such a double standard. NXT was different because Hunter is like, ‘you want to do that, go do it, go have fun, just don’t get hurt,’ but he trusted us to do it. That was the best part about Hunter’s NXT. We not only had the coaching staff behind us, pushing us to do more and push those limits past our gender, we had so much support from every avenue to do what we wanted to do. As soon as Hunter’s presence was gone, they were like, ‘Ladies, you have three minutes, your time is going to get cut so go as fast as you can.’ Sometimes, you just laugh.”

Elsewhere in the interview, Athena discussed a meeting that was later corroborated by multiple other sources by which the NXT women’s roster was encouraged by a ‘fashion consultant’ to dress in a new way after Triple H left NXT.

Transcription via Fightful

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• Athena
• ember moon
• Vince McMahon
• wwe

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