Ember Moon Slams WWE Creative: "You Just Have To Eat The Sh*t Sandwich"

By Andy H Murray / April 29, 2022

Athena painted a grim creative picture of her final few months in WWE during her new interview with Chris Van Vliet, diving deep on the myriad issues that led to her becoming "so unhappy" with her role and position in the company.

Paired with Shotzi Blackheart in NXT during the final stages of her five-year WWE run, the former Ember Moon was suddenly separated from her partner in July 2021. Shotzi was sent to SmackDown and thrown into a new tandem with Tegan Nox out of nowhere. This is where Athena's fun started unravelling (h/t WrestlingNews.co):-

“I feel like I need to talk about it just to get it off my chest and to get it out there in the universe. Because my last four months was just one of those moments that I wasn’t having fun anymore. And it started with Shotzi being gone. And Shotzi being drafted. And I remember like thinking like, 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.’ And I just was sitting there. And I was like, I was playing D&D, the the most beautiful day of my week, and I’m getting this phone call about how Shotzi’s been drafted. And I was like, Oh, my God, I’m so happy for her. And then like, the tag team thing popped out and I was like, but we’re the tag team, and we have merch, and we’re doing fun things. And we just finally gotten into our groove of the banter. But they’re like, don’t worry, we have stuff for you. And I was like, okay, cool. Cool. And I remember going to Hunter and Hunter was just like, ‘I have no clue what’s happening. We’ll figure it out together.’"

Worryingly, the writers who paired Shotzi and Nox together didn't have a clue that Blackheart and Moon were working together at the time:-

"But the problem I had was kind of like some of the newer writers were like coming from Raw coming from Smackdown [and they were like] ‘We had no idea you and Shotzi were a tag team. And like just sitting there and just a lot of WWE backstage is having to play the game of like, ‘yeah, man. It’s cool. We get it. We’re down here at NXT. It wasn’t like we weren’t front page of [WWE] dot com or anything when we won the titles, but that’s fine. Yes.’ And you’re just having to, I guess eat the sh*t sandwich and smile with sh*t in your teeth a lot of the times, because it’s all about not making waves. ”

In another detailed explanation, the former NXT Women's Champion outlined her and Triple H's idea for a heel turn, which would have involved a losing streak putting young, less-seasoned talent over on the developmental brand. Just when this was seemingly falling into place, Triple H was gone from NXT (presumably, this would have been around September 2021, when NXT was rebranded into NXT 2.0):-

"And it was like, you know, Me and Hunter, and the head writer at the time we had all came up with, we’re gonna do a heel turn for me, because that’s something new [and] that something different. And during this process, we wanted to do like a losing streak, or at least that was my thought is let me do the losing streak. I see all these new faces coming through here. Part of my job at NXT was to help new talent on TV, you know, which I which I get that, you know, I’ve been around for a very long time. I’ve been doing this like 16-17 years at this point in time and I love this business so much that I didn’t mind. I was like, Hey, let me go on a losing streak. Let me get super frustrated. And let me turn. I remember, okay, this is a great idea. We got ABCDEF, we’re going to do your first feud with this person, or this person. And then the first match happens, and then I’m off TV for four weeks. They are like, ‘don’t worry, we got this, we got this.’ Then Hunter disappeared."

Later in the interview, Athena described how the proposed heel turn was delayed and delayed and delayed, until WWE pulled the rug out from under her, scrapping it after she showed up at tapings expecting to be able to pull the trigger:-

"I don’t know if I turned to heel or not, you know, and then off TV for three weeks, and I have the match with Mandy, and they’re like, we’re, we’re finally pulling the trigger on this. And 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. And you’re going to turn heel, but you’re going to turn heel as your old character. We’re trying to get the old music and all that stuff together.’ And I was like, Alright, great. This is great. So I go home, get my bottle of whiskey, I’m dying this hair…Yes, I dyed my hair extensions that fire colored takes a minimum of eight hours. It is extremely tedious and during COVID, my dye supplier actually shut down so I’m having to find different colors, and I’m spending a fortune on this hair. And two weeks later, I show up to TV. I’m like super motivated, I’m happy and I’m like, Okay, it’s finally looking out for me. You know, just wait it out. Just wait it out. And I remember [writer] Ryan Katz and I went and filmed like a kind of demo of kind of the vibe that I wanted and, and he’s like, ‘this is gonna be awesome.’ I come back, I get the video ready. I’m ready to show everyone after TVs and they go, ‘Hey, we got some bad news.’ And I was like, I’m sorry, what? [They said] ‘No, Vince is pulling you off TV indefinitely.’ And I just kind of sat there and I was just like, What did I do wrong? He’s like, ‘You did nothing wrong.’ And I was like, I have done everything that you guys have asked me.”

Athena was eventually released by WWE as part of one of the company's many rounds of budget cuts on 4 November 2021. Her last televised match was one month prior to this. Immediately after learning of her release, she tweeted the following:-

All I can do is laugh...

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— Athena (@AthenaPalmer_FG) November 4, 2021

It sounds like her response was more than earned.