At the 2026 AEW Redemption pay-per-view event on Sunday, Maya World defeated Hikaru Shida to become the AEW TBS Champion.
In the post-show media scrum, World discussed several topics, including her career progress and the significant influence of her trainer, the reigning ROH Women’s World Champion Athena, on her journey.
World said, “I mean, like Tony said, I just take every opportunity I’ve been given and definitely ran with it. It’s something that I always prided myself with. Like honestly, if I can bring her up, Athena. She prepared me for moments like this. She didn’t know what was going to happen for me or what was going to come for me. But she was like, ‘You’re good. These moments are going to come so you’re going to need to be ready.’ So I just always, like I said, prided myself on, ‘There’s an opportunity, take the ball. Don’t drop it, keep going.’ And then the Mercedes match just elevated me, and that’s just who she is. She elevates people, and that’s kind of what she did for me. And here I am now, the TBS Champion, so yeah. So exciting.”
On who she would like to defend her newly-won title against at All In:
“I get a choice? [laughs] Right to it, okay. Hm, who would I like to face? I mean, we — I feel like my story with Athena isn’t done. I would like to face Athena. But whoever, whoever. Anybody can step up. But Athena, for sure.”
You can check out World’s comments in the video below.
(H/T to 411Mania.com for transcribing the above quotes)
