10 Wrestlers Who Lost All Passion For The Business
5. Athena
All Elite Wrestling has lost its way somewhat.
It's difficult to invest in such a bloated and often unfocused roster; the intricate, spiderweb booking of something like the Elite's gold run in 2021 no longer exists, and the booking feels disjointed and uneven as a result; a certain spark and flair is missing in too many stories, even if the beats are in the right order with something like Christian Cage Vs. Jack Perry.
The old thrill - of watching an ex-WWE performer become every bit as great as the fans knew they could be - has also faded. It was something that once validated a generation of fans who were told, over and over again, that WWE knew better. They didn't!
Athena is actually doing exactly that, only in the abyss that is the ROH/YouTube universe, so it barely counts. The change in her is staggering; a complete geek as a babyface in NXT, a cringeworthy promo, she is a cult hit rave-reviewed by the completionists. A stiff, smarmy bully with an ability to work as if she's fuelled by hatred, her matches are wrestled with a believable, compelling intensity. She's in her element, and if she appears to be a different person, she is. She cares about what she's doing now. She didn't towards the end of her WWE tenure.
"On some level, yeah, I feel like the passion was sucked out," she told Steve Fall of NBC Sports last year - possibly because she was told she had to dress "sexy" when she was a killer pro wrestler cast as a total dork.