Fans have voted the Athena vs Willow Nightingale clash from Death Before Dishonor 2023 as the greatest women’s match in ROH history.
While the company was previously a male-only promotion, since Tony Khan took over it has featured more and more women in main event spots.
While he bought the company in 2022, the “Women of Honor” were introduced into the company in 2016, creating the women’s division for the first time.
They were not given the spotlight until 2022, when Tony Khan made them a key feature of the promotion.
Stars like Athena and Mercedes Martinez have starred for the promotion, with the former Ember Moon being the current ROH Women’s Champion.
Athena made history at Death Before Dishonor 2023, when her match against Willow Nightingale became the first women’s match to main event a ROH pay per view – something AEW have never done.
Their incredible back and forth contest was amazing, and drew attention away from the other fantastic matches on the card.
It also had fans questioning why Athena is in ROH, and not tearing it up with Toni Storm, Saraya and Britt Baker in AEW.
The match was rated as 4.25 stars by Dave Meltzer (a rating many considered too low from the Wrestling Observer founder).
Wrestling fans on Cagematch had a much different view on the bout. After Athena put away Willow after 20 minutes and 31 seconds, they flocked to the site to award the match an 8.93 rating.
This was the highest-rated match on the card – above even the four-way tag team match, and the PAC vs Claudio Castagnoli match for the ROH World title.
The 8.93 rating placed Athena vs Willow as the 69th match in ROH history, above classics like Bryan Danielson vs Nigel McGuinness, AJ Styles vs Jay Lethal and Jay White vs Will Ospreay.
The list of matches it is rated above shows just how good both Willow Nightingale and Athena truly were in that match.
With both women holding championships (Willow Nightingale won the Owen Hart Cup Tournament), they are truly on top of the wrestling world as two of the USA’s best female workers.
What did you think of Willow vs Athena from ROH Death Before Dishonor 2023? Let us know what you think in the comments section below.