Result Of Mercedes Martinez Vs. Athena ROH Final Battle Match

A new Ring of Honor Women's Champion was crowned Saturday evening on the ROH Final Battle pay-per-view.

Athena defeated Mercedes Martinez to become the new ROH Women's Champion. Before losing tonight, Martinez defeated the then-champion Deonna Purrazzo on the May 4 episode of "Dynamite." At the time of the title match, Martinez was the interim ROH Women's Champion, while it was Purrazzo, who was the "real" ROH Women's Champion. Martinez's last title defense before Final Battle was against Serena Deeb at ROH Death Before Dishonor.

Tonight's win marks Athena's first as the ROH Women's Champion. The AEW star also holds the Warrior Wrestling Women's Championship. Currently, Athena turned into a heel and became more "aggressive." During this week, she spoke about her persona change with "Busted Open Radio." Before her AEW career, Athena wrestled in WWE under the ring name Ember Moon from 2015 to 2021. The company released her on November 4, 2021. 

Like Athena, Martinez was also in WWE. The 42-year-old was signed with WWE in January 2020 after working the Mae Young Classic in 2017 and 2018 and making other appearances for the company. WWE later released her in August 2021 and in December of that year, she officially signed with AEW. 

Other title matches slated for tonight's Final Battle include ROH World Champion Chris Jericho defending his title against Claudio Castagnoli, Samoa Joe defending his ROH World Television Championship against Juice Robinson, and FTR will defend the ROH World Tag Team titles against The Briscoes (Mark and Jay Briscoe). Ongoing live coverage of ROH Final Battle pay-per-view is available at this link here.