After it was originally delayed due to visa issues, Willow Nightingale is finally set to make her Japan debut.
Tokyo Joshi Pro-Wrestling has announced that Nightingale will be in action at their shows in Japan on Saturday, October 29 and Sunday, November 6. Nightingale was supposed to debut for the promotion this July, but that couldn’t happen due to visa processes taking longer than expected.
TJPW noted in July that it would do its best to have Nightingale come to the promotion in the near future.
Nightingale tweeted on Friday: “So excited to FINALLY make my Japanese debut with none other than @tjpw2013 [heart emoji]”
Nightingale is a regular for AEW, though it’s yet to be confirmed if she’s signed an AEW contract. She unsuccessfully challenged Jade Cargill for the TBS Championship at Battle of the Belts IV on October 7.
Nightingale has also been involved with ROH both before and after the promotion was purchased by Tony Khan.
This is a loaded episode of Speak Now Pro Wrestling with Denise Salcedo!
The episode kicks off with an in-depth recap and analysis of the backstage drama between Andrade and Sammy Guevara, then Denise dives into AEW Dynamite coverage. Topics discussed include Wheeler Yuta vs MJF, Wardlow and Brian Cage, the women’s segment, National Scissoring Day celebration, and lots more! This is a fun and engaging show perfect for all fans of AEW!
A six-woman tag match is set to take place on this week’s AEW Dynamite.
AEW has announced that TBS Champion Jade Cargill, Kiera Hogan & Leila Grey will take on Athena, Kris Statlander & Willow Nightingale on Dynamite this Wednesday. It’s the Fyter Fest week two edition of the show.
“[Athena] & [Statlander] have been at war with TBS Champ #JadeCargill & The Baddies; now they have a trios partner up for the fight,” AEW tweeted. “[Nightingale] teams with Stat + Athena vs. Jade/Kiera Hogan/Leila Grey LIVE on #AEWDynamite #FyterFest! TOMORROW 8pm ET/7pm CT on TBS!”
Wednesday’s Dynamite is being held at Gas South Arena in Duluth, Georgia. Here’s the updated lineup for the episode:
Barbed wire death match: Eddie Kingston vs. Chris Jericho (the Jericho Appreciation Society will be suspended above the ring in a shark cage)
Luchasaurus & Christian Cage vs. The Varsity Blonds
Willow Nightingale is going to have to wait a bit longer to have her first match in Japan.
Nightingale was supposed to make her Japan debut this Saturday (July 9), facing Miu Watanabe at Tokyo Joshi Pro Wrestling’s Summer Sun Princess 2022 event. But TJPW has announced that, due to visa processes taking longer than expected, Nightingale won’t be able to appear at the show.
TJPW noted that they’ll do their best to have Nightingale come to the promotion in the near future.
“Unfortunately, Willow Nightingale will be unable to be at #tjpwSSP22 on July 9 due to visa processes taking more time than expected,” TJPW tweeted. “We apologize to fans who were looking forward to her appearance and will do our best to have her come to #tjpw in the near future.”
Watanabe will instead face Ryo Mizunami at Summer Sun Princess 2022.
“I was looking forward to debuting with @tjpw2013 this coming weekend, but sometimes things don’t go as planned,” Nightingale wrote. “Hopefully once my visa situation gets settled, I will be able to finally wrestle for TJPW. Please still watch Summer Sun Princess & I will keep studying my Japanese”
In addition to competing on the indies, Nightingale also appears for both AEW and ROH.
Willow Nightingale is set to make her Tokyo Joshi Pro debut.
The 28-year-old has never wrestled in Japan before. TJPW announced on social media that Nightingale will debut for the promotion at Summer Sun Princess on Saturday, July 9.
Nightingale challenged for the interim ROH Women’s World Championship at Supercard of Honor on April 1. She was defeated by Mercedes Martinez. Since then she has wrestled 13 times on AEW programming. Nightingale most recently took part in the AEW Dark tapings held on Saturday, June 11 from Universal Studios in Orlando, Florida.
TJPW Summer Sun Princess 2022 will take place from the Tokyo Ota Ward General Gymnasium. The announced lineup for the show is as follows:
Princess of Princess Champion Shoko Nakajima defends against Rika Tatsumi
International Princess Champion Maki Itoh defends against an opponent to be announced
Mei Suruga & Suzume vs. TBA
Willow Nightingale, Hikaru Shida, Riho, Aja Kong, Yuki Arai, Juria Nagano are set to appear
Willow Nightingale has been generating buzz after last week’s appearance on AEW Rampage in which she wrestled Red Velvet in an Owen Hart Foundation Tournament qualifying match.
I spoke with her for 40 minutes earlier this week about her recent high-profile matches, her road to get there and what could be ahead in either AEW or Ring of Honor.
While Nightingale did not end up on the winning end against Velvet, she did receive plenty of positive reviews. She said her first experience being on TNT was “amazing” and the post-match positive feedback has been “surreal.”
“For someone like me who has been a wrestling fan for so long, who has been doing indie wrestling for years. It kinda seems like this is something that is attainable, it’s possible and one day this could be your reality,” she said.
“Then to kinda have that much buzz to hit you at once…it’s like you hear the phrase ‘an overnight success.’ Success doesn’t happen overnight. I think the reason so many people were happy to see me is because I have accumulated this fanbase over a certain amount of time. I’ve been wrestling seven years.”
That wasn’t Nightingale’s first AEW match as she has wrestled multiple times on both Dark and Dark: Elevation, saying she has “always gotten feedback that is more or less positive.”
Just a week prior to her Rampage debut, Nightingale also took part in the relaunch of Ring of Honor in the interim Women’s title match against Mercedes Martinez. While she had competed there before, she wasn’t sure if she would be asked to return given the new ownership until she was asked.
She explained that the match was important to her and one she felt would be “career-making.” She attended seminars run by Martinez and would ask her questions about the business.
“So to work with her, I was like ‘Alright, I gotta get my work boots on, put on my big girl pants and just make this happen.'”
Nightingale said that nothing has been made official regarding her future with either AEW or ROH, but things are moving in the right direction.
“It’s looking positive. I don’t have anything solid that I can tell anyone right now, but things are looking good,” she said.
Nightingale continues to look forward and work toward achieving more goals Two of them: to wrestle outside of North America and to keep wrestling full-time.
“I really would love to wrestle internationally. I have only ever wrestled in the United States and Canada. Japan has always been a huge goal of mine. I don’t have another job, so if I could just make it through the rest of the year, like that, that is such a huge accomplishment for me.”
Join on-camera personality Denise Salcedo as she breaks down two very newsworthy episodes of WWE Smackdown and AEW Rampage. On the WWE side of things, we have some call-ups and name changes, and on the AEW side of things, we had a major main event between Jon Moxley and Wheeler Yuta. This is a very fun episode of Speak Now Pro Wrestling.
ROH has announced there will be an Interim Women’s World Championship match at Supercard of Honor.
Mercedes Martinez will face Willow Nightingale with the winner moving on to wrestle current champion, Deonna Purrazzo, at a later date. The event takes place Friday, April 1 at 8 p.m Eastern time from the Curtis Culwell Center in Garland, Texas.
Purrazzo will be holding her “champ-champ open challenge” at Impact Multiverse of Madness the same night beginning at 10 p.m Eastern time. AEW President Tony Khan said on the Strong Style YouTube show last Friday that he didn’t want to make Purrazzo wrestle twice in the same evening.
“I don’t want to put her in a tough position where she has to wrestle twice in a span of a few hours but that could happen. Scott and I are still talking,” he said.
The updated lineup for ROH Supercard of Honor is as follows:
Winner-take-all match to determine undisputed ROH World Champion: Jonathan Gresham vs. Bandido
ROH Tag Team Champions The Briscoes defend against FTR
ROH Pure Champion Josh Woods defends against Wheeler Yuta
Mercedes Martinez vs. Willow Nightingale for the Interim ROH Women’s World Championship
Swerve The Realest (Shane Strickland) vs. Alex Zayne
The Women’s World Championship match for ROH’s Final Battle pay-per-view is now set.
On the latest edition of ROH TV, Willow Nightingale defeated Mandy Leon in a number one contender’s match. Willow will challenge Rok-C for the ROH Women’s World Championship at Final Battle this Saturday (December 11).
Willow and Leon both won triple threat matches to advance to the number one contender’s bout. Willow defeated Miranda Alize and Angelina Love, while Leon defeated Trish Adora and Allysin Kay.
Rok-C became the inaugural ROH Women’s World Champion by defeating Alize in the finals of a tournament at Death Before Dishonor this September.
A six-man tag team match with Brody King, Homicide & Tony Deppen facing Tracy Williams, Taylor Rust & Eli Isom has also been added to Final Battle.
Final Battle is being held at Chesapeake Employers Insurance Arena in Baltimore. The show will mark the end of an era for ROH. After Final Battle, ROH will go on hiatus for the first quarter of 2022 to “reimagine” the company. ROH talent won’t have their contracts renewed following the PPV.
Final Battle Hour One will stream for free on HonorClub, YouTube, and Facebook starting at 7 p.m. Eastern time this Saturday. The main card will then begin on HonorClub and PPV at 8 p.m. Eastern.
Here’s the updated card for the show:
ROH World Champion Bandido defends against Jonathan Gresham
ROH Women’s World Champion Rok-C defends against Willow Nightingale
ROH Tag Team Champions The OGK (Matt Taven & Mike Bennett) defend against The Briscoes (Jay & Mark Briscoe)
ROH Pure Champion Josh Woods defends against Brian Johnson
Shane Taylor vs. Kenny King
Brody King, Homicide & Tony Deppen vs. Tracy Williams, Taylor Rust & Eli Isom
ROH Television Champion Dalton Castle defends against an opponent to be announced
ROH Six-Man Tag Team Champions Shane Taylor Promotions (Moses, Kaun & O’Shay Edwards) defend against The Righteous (Vincent, Bateman & Dutch)
Two new competitors were introduced to ROH fans — and they did not disappoint. Also, another Ticket to Gold was given out.
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Willow defeated Alex Gracia (8:45)
A quick background on both of these competitors: Alex Gracia has been nearly everywhere in the business. She’s wrestled for AEW, NWA, ROW, CMLL, Shine, Stardom, Evolve, Shimmer, and Rise. Willow Nightingale has also been around the block. She’s wrestled for AEW, GCW, Beyond, Shimmer, WoW, and Rise.
When the bell rang, Willow had Gracia on the mat pretty fast in a headlock. Gracia fought out of it and the two exchanged a series of arm drags back and forth. Willow had a great series of offensive attacks before hitting a beautiful suplex.
Willow kept on with constant offense, eventually locking in a unique standing Figure Four and then also applying a Camel Clutch. Gracia was able to escape and attempted to find her footing in the contest.
While Willow was setting up for something big in the corner, Gracia was able to sneak in and hit a great looking lungblower, followed by a running knee in the corner. Gracia was only able to muster a two count out of her series of momentum.
Gracia had sent Willow reeling to the outside after the pinfall attempt, which allowed her to hit a great springboard crossbody to Willow on the outside. Gracia had all the momentum at this point and rolled Willow back in the ring.
Gracia went to the top rope and hit a cannonball onto Willow. Gracia then tried a springboard maneuver, but she was caught in mid-air by Willow. Willow body slammed Gracia and tried to put her away, but she kicked out at two.
In the final sequence of the match, Willow tried to hit a moonsault but nobody was home. The two women then had a standoff that involved trading forearms, which resulted in Willow being able to hit her Dangerous Babe gutwrench powerbomb for the win. What a phenomenal match.
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Ticket to Gold: Willow
Brian Zane was joined backstage by Willow after the match. Zane congratulated Willow on her win and asked if she thought her performance earned her a Ticket to Gold.
Willow said she thought she did great and hoped it was enough to earn a Ticket to Gold. Maria Kanellis-Bennett surprised Willow and praised her performance in the match. Kanellis-Bennett officially gave Willow a Ticket to Gold then and there, officially putting her in this summer’s ROH Women’s Championship Tournament.
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Final Thoughts —
I’m still in awe over that match. It was the best women’s match we’ve seen from ROH since the women’s division returned, bar none. Willow and Gracia are very good performers and their styles meshed together perfectly. Willow especially stood out to me — she had a lot of power and grit behind all of her moves.
While Willow got a Ticket to Gold, I would say Gracia deserves one as well. She showed out in the match, has done great work on AEW Dark, and has a good fanbase behind her on the internet.
Willow is the seventh entrant to be confirmed for ROH’s Women’s World Championship tournament.
On this week’s ROH Women’s Division Wednesday episode, Maria Kanellis-Bennett presented Willow with a Ticket to Gold that grants her a spot in the Women’s World Championship tournament. Willow was given the Ticket to Gold during a post-match interview after defeating Alex Gracia on Women’s Division Wednesday.
Willow also goes by the name Willow Nightingale. She made her AEW debut on an episode of Dark: Elevation last month, losing to Thunder Rosa. Willow also lost to Diamante on Dark last month. Willow has been wrestling since 2015 and was trained at the NYWC Academy.
The ROH Women’s World Championship is a new title that’s replacing the former Women of Honor World Championship. The tournament to crown the first champion is taking place this summer. Here’s the updated list of entrants:
Rok-C
Angelina Love
Miranda Alize
Trish Adora
Allysin Kay
Mazzerati
Willow
Love will be getting a first-round bye in the tournament. Love receiving the bye was a stipulation of her defeating Quinn McKay on ROH TV last month.
ROH hasn’t announced how many entrants the tournament field will consist of. It was set to be a 16-woman tournament when it was originally supposed to take place in 2020, but the tournament was delayed following the start of the COVID-19 pandemic.
This week’s Women’s Division Wednesday ended with it being questioned whether we’ll see Gracia again or if her tournament chances have slipped away.
