“The Fallen Goddess” Athena breaks a milestone document
“The Fallen Goddess” Athena breaks a milestone document
On March 22, 2003 on the NIGHT OF CHAMPIONS occasion, Samoa Joe defeated the late-Xavier to grow to be the third ROH Champion. For ROH that evening meant the restoration of honor to championship that had been held for six months by one of many firm’s most loathed people. As proficient a wrestler as “The All Round Finest” Xavier might have been, his standing as a member of Christopher Daniels’ Prophecy meant he didn’t uphold the Code of Honor, nor respect what it represented to Ring of Honor.
With Joe as champion, the title was thrust to the forefront of the corporate, turning into the prize each competitor fought to say and he elevated it from a regional promotion’s marquee title to a real World Championship. For 645 days, Samoa Joe dominated the competitors, securing 29 championship victories over males like “The Infamous 187” Murder, Colt Cabana, Bryan Danielson, each Mark and Jay Briscoe, in addition to engaged in one of the vital legendary trilogy of bouts ever held in a ROH ring. His title reign got here to an finish at FINAL BATTLE 2004 in Philadelphia, and for 7,203 days it has remained the benchmark in ROH historical past. Solely Nigel McGuinness remotely come near touching that benchmark as ROH World Champion, and even he was 100 days shy of tying Joe’s document.
So far as the opposite championships in Ring of Honor, the ROH Ladies’s World TV Title is simply too new to even come shut, the Males’s World TV Title document is held by Joe at 574 days, the World Tag Title document is within the camp of The Basis with 441 days, and the World Six-Man Title document stands at 405 days with MexiSquad. All of these are a far cry from Samoa Joe’s milestone, however in the event you discover, there may be one championship lacking from that checklist, the ROH Ladies’s World Championship, and that’s as a result of as of the tip of day on 9/15/24, “The Fallen Goddess” Athena has eclipsed Joe’s nearly-twenty yr document!
The fourth champion within the title’s historical past, Athena defeated Mercedes Martinez at FINAL BATTLE 2022 to take the Ladies’s Division crown and within the 646 days since, she has defended her title on 22 events towards 18 completely different opponents, with Willow Nightingale and Miyu Yamashita each failing twice, and Kiera Hogan falling to Athena in three bouts. She’s put down challenges from former AEW Ladies’s World Champions Nyla Rose and Hikaru Shida, in addition to ladies like Marina Shafir, Skye Blue, Emi Sakura, and Yuka Sakazaki.
Then there may be her document in Proving Floor and Eliminator contests; throughout these final 646 days, Athena has turned away 4 Eliminator challenges and 27 on the Proving Floor. Of all these challengers making an attempt to final ten minutes with the champion, the benchmark by which one may earn a future World Title match, Trish Adora lasted the longest at 7:11 with Roxanne falling in simply 0:33 when she tried her hand towards “The Fallen Goddess”.
Save opponents during the last 22 years who had one or two matches inside a ROH Ring, Athena probably has the strongest successful share in ROH’s historical past. With 59 matches on her ROH resume, Athena has solely misplaced twice, and each of these had been in tag workforce competitors the place Billie Starkz misplaced the bout for his or her workforce. Which means 57 victories, an ideal 54 in one-on-one competitors, and an total 96.6 win share. She has actually lived as much as her self-imposed moniker of “The Ceaselessly Champion” given that each one who has stepped to her has been stepped on, stepped over, or smashed to items.
The document Athena has produced begs the query: is there anybody left? Will “The Fallen Goddess” actually reign over this division ceaselessly? For 646 days nobody has been in a position to take the ROH Ladies’s World Championship away from her, will we subsequent see her eclipse Jay Deadly’s document of 707 days throughout two World Title reigns or his 798 days as World TV Champion between two reigns? Can Athena take one title reign and surpass the 1486 days The Briscoes spent as World Tag Champions over their 13 reigns on prime? On the fee she goes, all these items appear potential…
