Athena reflects on pushing for Maya World to have an opportunity in AEW, cried when she found out she got signed: “Maya was one of the first women that were in the Texas area that I avidly went after. I saw her on a show and I was like, ‘Man, there’s something there.’ There’s something really special when it came to Maya. The way she moved, the way she performed. She was just missing a couple beats, so I had invited her to come train with me. She had been training with me for almost three years, and I remember just trying to get her in front of TK at one point in time. I remember having her first match on an AEW show. I can’t remember if it was a Dynamite, Collision, Dark, but I remember being like, ‘Yo, TK, you got to see this girl.' They kept bringing her back, and it just took that one step. I was like, ‘Girl, we gotta get you new gear, we gotta get you this, we gotta get you that. We gotta work on your promos.’ I was just hounding her left and right, and then soon enough, the moment came. She took advantage of an opportunity and she ended up with a contract. I remember she called me at like 2 AM. She called me like six times and I was like, ‘Oh my God, this must be an emergency. What’s going on?’ She’s like, ‘I did it! I did it!’ I was like, ‘Girl, it’s so loud. What are you doing? What did you do?’ And she’s like, ‘I got signed! They offered me a contract!’ Very off the record because Athena sheds no tears for no one, but I just cried because I was like, ‘Oh, thank goodness she did it. It didn’t take her 10 years like it took me.'” (@_denisesalcedo)