At Sunday night’s AEW Double or Nothing 2024 pay-per-view event, Mercedes Mone defeated Willow Nightingale to become the fifth woman ever to hold the AEW TBS Championship. It also marked her in-ring return after being sidelined for a year.
At the post-show media scrum, Mone spoke about facing Nightingale. She said,
“How did it finally feel after a year of being away from something that I’ve loved since I was a little girl? Wrestling has not only changed my life but saved my life. Coming here to AEW has saved my life. It’s given me new hopes, new dreams, new chances, new opportunities. Tonight, being here at AEW, celebrating five years of AEW, being here with Willow, who is legit one of the greatest women I’ve ever stepped in the ring with, and I’ve been doing this for 14 years. She is legit one of the best. Amazing. It feels so incredible. I’ve been waiting for this moment, really ever since I got signed to AEW, but really for the past two years of not knowing of where I was going to be or what was going to happen after leaving WWE.
“What was going to be next for me? A lot of times in wrestling, people think WWE is the only place. Tonight, we showed the wrestling world that it is not the only place. AEW is where the best wrestle and we had the greatest show tonight, celebrating five years of this incredible company where we cannot be denied. We are going to show wrestling fans around the world that this is the place to celebrate wrestling because this is the best place to be.”
