Top Star Injured At Recent AEW/ROH Taping

This major favourite had an injury scare at recent TV taping.

Athena Yuka Sakazaki
ROH

With the injury bug running rampant through AEW and ROH right now, Athena is the latest big name to have suffered an injury scare.

As per PWInsider, the current ROH Women's Champion injured her left leg at the latest ROH TV tapings on Thursday.

At that taping, Athena was in action against Viva Van. As Van ducked and pulled the middle rope down on a charging Athena, the War Goddess took a bump through the ropes and to the floor. Upon getting up, Athena was notably limping and soon hit Van with a forearm smash and went for the pin. Van did actually initially kick out of that pinfall, but immediately stayed down on the second attempted pin after Athena seemingly let the referee know that she was hurt.

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Athena is said to have remained in character after the match, although she didn't put any weight on her left leg as she was assisted to the back. The star was checked on after this bout, but there has yet to be any further information on the nature of the injury or if it's serious enough to warrant any time on the sidelines.

As of this writing, Athena has been the ROH Women's Champion for over 500 days after defeating Mercedes Martinez for that prize at Final Battle 2022. Having been absolutely knocking it out of the park in ROH across this past year or more, many have been clamouring for the one-time Ember Moon to become a featured player on AEW TV. Despite various other ROH title holders being regular parts of AEW programming during the past couple of years, Athena has yet to be afforded that opportunity.

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Right now, Tony Khan's promotions have several major names out of action due to injury, with MJF, Kenny Omega, Adam Cole, Britt Baker, Jamie Hayter, Eddie Kingston, Rey Fenix, Julia Hart, Powerhouse Hobbs, and Ortiz just some of those on the sidelines.

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Once described as the Swiss Army Knife of WhatCulture, Andrew can usually be found writing, editing, or presenting on a wide range of topics. As a lifelong wrestling fan, horror obsessive, and comic book nerd, he's been covering those topics professionally as far back as 2010. In addition to his current WhatCulture role of Senior Content Producer, Andrew previously spent nearly a decade as Online Editor and Lead Writer for the world's longest-running genre publication, Starburst Magazine, and his work has also been featured on BBC, TechRadar, Tom's Guide, WhatToWatch, Sportkskeeda, and various other outlets, in addition to being a Rotten Tomatoes-approved film critic. Between his main day job, his role as the lead panel host of Wales Comic Con, and his gig as a pre-match host for Wrexham AFC games, Andrew has also carried out a hugely varied amount of interviews, from the likes of Robert Englund, Kane Hodder, Adrienne Barbeau, Rob Zombie, Katharine Isabelle, Leigh Whannell, Bruce Campbell, and Tony Todd, to Kevin Smith, Ron Perlman, Elijah Wood, Giancarlo Esposito, Simon Pegg, Charlie Cox, the Russo Brothers, and Brian Blessed, to Kevin Conroy, Paul Dini, Tara Strong, Will Friedle, Burt Ward, Andrea Romano, Frank Miller, and Rob Liefeld, to Bret Hart, Sting, Mick Foley, Ricky Starks, Jamie Hayer, Britt Baker, Eric Bischoff, and William Regal, to Mickey Thomas, Joey Jones, Phil Parkinson, Brian Flynn, Denis Smith, Gary Bennett, Karl Connolly, and Bryan Robson - and that's just the tip of an ever-expanding iceberg. Where his beloved Wrexham AFC is concerned, Andrew is co-host of the Fearless in Devotion podcast, which won the Club Podcast of the Year gong at the 2024 FSA Awards.