Vince is pulling you off of tv indefinitely.’ I just kind of sat there and I was like, what did I do wrong? I have done everything you have asked me and have gone over and above. I remember we went to film a demo of the vibe that I wanted, come back and get the video ready. 2 weeks later I show up to tv and I am super motivated and happy. During COVID my supplier shut down so I am trying to find the colors and it costs an astronomical amount. I have to hand dye it and it take an astronomical amount of time, it’s a minimum of 8 hours. You’re going to turn heel but as your old character and it’s the old music again.’ I’m like great! I go home, get my bottle of whiskey and I’m dying my hair. You're going back to the old Ember character, this is from Vince. Then I am off tv for 3 weeks and I have the match with Mandy and they tell me ‘You need to dye your hair fire colored again and get the red contacts. And remember going online and people were like ‘Did Ember turn heel?’ And I don’t know if I did or not. They turn me, but they don’t, and there was a lot of confusion of what was going to happen. They say they want me to go heel in this match, but to make it subtle. Me and Cora go out there and have this banger of a match. I’m never going to say no to having a match on tv regardless of where it is. One of the head coaches just goes ‘Will you do me a favor and work 205 Live with Cora Jade? We really like her and it will be a fun match in the main event of 205 Live.’ I’m like ok, cool, that’s great. Then 3 weeks later we are going to do this match, but then that gets pulled from tv. Ok, cool, whatever, we will keep trucking. But they thought it was something else and they pulled me from the match. "I was supposed to do a match with Sarray, but I ended up getting a rash on my arm, which was an allergic reaction to something. I’m like ok, but they are like ‘It’s ok, we’ve got this.’ Then Hunter disappeared." I remember being told it’s a great idea, we do the first match and I am off tv for 4 weeks. So I’m like let me go on this losing streak, get frustrated and let me turn. I have been doing this for 17 years, I love this business, I don’t mind. There were all these new faces coming through, part of my job in NXT is to help new talent, I get that. We wanted to do a losing streak, at least that was my thought. It’s new, it’s different and something I haven't done before. Me and Hunter and the head writer, we had come up with the idea of doing a heel turn for me. It’s all about not making waves and being like it’s all ok. We were down here in NXT, it’s not like we were front and center page of WWE.com when we won the titles, but that’s fine!’ You have to eat the sh*t sandwich and smile with sh*t in your teeth a lot of times. But the problem here I had was that some of the newer writers who were from Raw and SmackDown were like ‘We had no idea you and Shotzi were a tag team.’ Just sitting there and a lot of WWE backstage is playing the game. Bayley had gotten injured and I knew that Shotzi and Tegan were doing try-out dark matches. I remember going to Hunter, and he was saying ‘I have no clue what is happening, we will figure it out together.’ That was like so much of what I needed at that time. We finally got into our groove too, but they were like ‘Don’t worry, we have stuff for you.’ So I’m like ok, cool. But we were the tag team, we were doing stuff and we had the merch. I was so happy for her, but then the tag team thing popped up. They said ‘Hey, we don’t want you to be upset, but Shotzi just got moved to SmackDown and will be debuting with Tegan Nox as a tag team.’ I was just sitting there and was like, I was playing D & D and I got this phone call. I was sitting at home and I got a phone call. It started with Shotzi being gone and Shotzi being drafted. My last 4 months were just one of those moments where it wasn’t fun. She joins Chris Van Vliet to talk about her time in WWE and NXT, the frustrations she had during her last few months there, what's next for her, if she is interested in going to AEW, her love of Dungeons and Dragons, her Twitch Stream, her cats, how she met her husband and fellow pro wrestler Matthew Palmer and much more! Athena is a professional wrestler known for working under the name Ember Moon in WWE and NXT.
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