Willow Nightingale Assesses State Of AEW Women's Division

Willow Nightingale has already shown she's not afraid to take part in the kind of matches typically reserved for men. Her brutal All Out street fight against Kris Statlander saw tables, thumbtacks, and light tubes employed, much to the shock and delight of the Chicago crowd. On "Battleground Podcast," Nightingale reflected on the evolution of women's wrestling, noting that it wasn't that long ago when women's matches were often dismissed as "bathroom break" matches.

"I think we've come a really long way just in the two years that I've been here [in AEW]," she said. "I think it's a lot deeper than Tony saying, I want to give the girls time or I don't ... Fans ultimately do have a little bit of say over what we do ... you can see, over time, that we've had more spots on the show, more opportunities, more time, and that's because over the five years, we've forced people to pay attention to us." Nightingale also credited current TBS Champion Mercedes Mone for bringing name recognition to AEW upon her signing with the company. She said she's been a big part of helping the women's division grow as a whole.

"I can't deny the fact that Mercedes coming to our company has helped us, 'cause she has," Nightingale said. "She's been an advocate for all of us ... Again, progress is something that is very slow. That is something that is bigger than wrestling. When you look at all the social change that our country, or different countries have gone through, and will continue to go through, progress is slow. And so to see that reflected in wrestling, something that already is kind of a little further back socially and progressively as the rest of the world, it's nice to see us kind of catching up and getting there."

If you use any of the quotes in this article, please credit "Battleground Podcast" with a h/t to Wrestling Inc. for the transcription.