AEW's Willow Nightingale Weighs In On Intergender Wrestling

At AEW Double or Nothing 2025, both Willow Nightingale and Marina Shafir made history as they became the first women in company history to take part in the annual Anarchy in the Arena match, with Nightingale representing Team AEW, while Shafir represented the Death Riders. Both women have become more and more physical throughout the Death Riders storyline that kicked off in the fall of 2024, with various intergender tag team matches taking place on episodes of AEW programming in recent months. Nightingale was a recent guest on the "Gabby AF" podcast where she was asked about interacting with the likes of Swerve Strickland and Kenny Omega, and while she is no stranger to wrestling men, her ultimate goal is to uplift women's wrestling and bring that to the forefront.

"What's so funny to me is like obviously I came up on the indies around the US, and like I did intergender wrestling and stuff like that, but I'm a feminist at heart," Nightingale said. "Women's wrestling and positioning women to be all they can, and bring out the best in other people and hope that they bring out the best in me has always been at the forefront of what I want to do." 

With that said, Nightingale has been having a fantastic time being at the forefront of a company she is thrilled to be a part of. "To find myself in the mix with all these guys...I just love this company, and like if I could take all of the good–the guardian of the good, or like the bearer of light and protect this company with some cool people and friends who I've also known for years...it's been cool."

Please credit "Gabby AF" when using quotes from this article, and give a H/T to Wrestling Inc. for the transcription.