Athena (Ember Moon in WWE) opened up about her final months in WWE during an interview with Chris Van Vliet.
Moon was let go by WWE last year and has since joined AEW. While with WWE, she found success in NXT, but failed to find her footing on the main roster.
“My last four months was just one of those moments that I wasn’t having fun anymore. It started with Shotzi being gone and Shotzi being drafted,” Athena says in the clip. “I was sitting at home and I got a phone call saying, ‘Hey, we don’t want you to be upset but Shotzi just got moved to Smackdown and she is debuting with Tegan Nox as a tag team.'”
“I was like, ‘But we’re the tag team and we have merch and we’re doing fun things and we had just finally gotten into our groove.'”
She spoke to Triple H shortly after that and he expressed that he wasn’t sure what was happening. The decision was then made that she would turn heel.
“I was like, ‘Hey, let me go on a losing streak, let me get super frustrated, and let me turn,” she continued. “Then the first match happens and then I’m off TV for four weeks.”
The planned turn kept getting pushed back after Triple H took a leave of absence following his cardiac event last September.
“Then Hunter disappeared. I was supposed to do a match with Sarray and I ended up getting a rash on my arm. I had an allergic reaction to something that they thought was something else, so they pulled me from the match.”
She was then asked to turn in a match against Cora Jade.
“They go, ‘You’re turning in this match but we want to make it subtle.’ So, they kind of turn me but they don’t. Then there was a lot of confusion on what was supposed to happen.”
“I was like, ‘I don’t know if I turned heel or not.’ Then [I’m] off TV for three weeks and I have the match with Mandy and they’re like, ‘We’re finally pulling the trigger on this.’ I get a note that week saying, ‘Hey, in two weeks, we need you to dye your hair fire colored again, we need you to get the red contacts, you’re going back to the old Ember Moon character. This is per Vince [McMahon]. You’re going to turn heel but you’re going to turn heel as your old character.'”
She had shot a video for her return two weeks later only to be told she would not be returning to TV.
“I get the video ready, I’m ready to show everyone after TVs and they’re like, ‘Hey, we have some bad news. Vince is pulling you off TV indefinitely.’ I just kind of sat there and was like, ‘What did I do wrong?'”
“When you care about something and you care about this business so much more, not just for yourself but for everyone involved, it hurts so much more,” she continued.
Moon recalled a meeting WWE held with talent where they told them to dress sexier and look more like Mandy Rose as well.
“On some level, I knew that I was leaving,” she continued. “I had already gone and bought an extra bag and kept it in the locker room so I could pack all my stuff and leave. It had been there for like a month.”
H/T to F4Wonline.com for the transcript
