With twenty-four straight victories in Ring of Honor competition, and nine championship title defenses to her record, “The Fallen Goddess” Athena is unarguably the most successful wrestler in this new era of honor. Since she bested Mercedes Martinez at FINAL BATTLE 2022 last December, Athena has been on an absolute tear across AEW and ROH programming, facing every challenge thrown her way, and smashing every, in her words, porcelain doll placed in the ring.
But that doesn’t mean women will stop trying to be the one to knock Athena off her perch; whether it be a new challenge stepping onto the Proving Ground hoping to earn a shot, or a familiar foe returning for retribution, there are no shortage of challengers for “The Fallen Goddess”. And the latter of those, the familiar coming back for more, that’s what Athena has on her hands this Thursday night when Kiera Hogan challenges for the ROH Women’s World Championship! See this isn’t their first dance, they first met almost a year ago to the day on the June 3rd edition of RAMPAGE where Athena topped Kiera in singles action, and they’d meet in tag team action a little over a month later where then-TBS Champion Jade Cargill and Kiera topped Athena and Willow Nightingale, but that wasn’t the end for the two women.
Just two weeks after capturing the championship, Athena would make her second defense against Kiera on the 12/26 edition of DARK: ELEVATION, closing out her 2022 with a strong title defense that was just a preview of what 2023 would bring. So while Athena has spent the year of 2023 cementing her position as the most dominant champion the ROH Women’s Division has ever seen, Kiera Hogan made her ROH debut just last week with a victory over Vertvixen, but that’s not all she did with her debut night. As heard in the above clip from Athena, Kiera, sick of hearing Athena week-after-week and seeing her assault foe-after-foe, made quite an impact on the champion, slamming the champion face first into her own title belt.
That bring us to Thursday night’s title fight between Athena and Kiera Hogan! If “The Fallen Goddess” is victorious, she will become the most successful champion to date, surpassing Rok-C’s records of nine title defenses, and continuing her trek towards surpassing Mercedes Martinez’s 220 day reign record. If Hogan can topple Athena, the entire Women’s division will be able to breath a sigh of relief that an honorable competitor is once again standing atop the mountain, and Kiera can celebrate knocking one of the best in the business off the peak.