Ember Moon Was Nervous Before NXT Takeover Return, Teases New Elements to Her Character

Ember Moon made her big return from injury at NXT Takeover 31 and talked about her time away, her return and more in a new interview with Sports Illustrated. You can check out the highlights below:

On her return at NXT Takeover 31: “I was nervous and I wasn’t certain how I would be received. I didn’t even know Toni Storm was popping up on the monitor right before me. She’s stunning in the ring, and I want to wrestle her, too. My nerves kept building as I was walking out to the stage. All I could think was, ‘Crap, did I even shut the visor to the helmet?’ If you look quickly, I grab my helmet and checked. Then I took off the helmet, and it was an outstanding, memorable moment. I think it may have broke the internet for a hot minute. It reminded me that NXT is the place where I’m meant to be. I couldn’t ask for a better team to support me, and it was so amazing to be there on the first night of the Capitol Wrestling Center.”

On having a rough 2019: “2019 was not my year. I ended up finding out I was hurt before the Rumble, and did immediate surgery after my elbow got locked into a 90-degree angle. I came back and got drafted to SmackDown, which was awesome because I always wanted to be on the blue brand, but couldn’t get my stride going. I finally felt good by SummerSlam. There was a Raw in San Francisco, and I had a match with Lacey Evans, which I felt great about. Then the injury happened.”

On her injury in September: “I remember going through the curtain behind Truth and Carmella, and he was dumping her down, and I just hit the brakes so hard. It felt like my foot went through the floor. I heard a pop. I thought I was fine, I had no pain, and then I went on my flight. The next day, I went to get some food, and I fell over. So I went to the doctor, and that’s how I found out I tore my Achilles. I went to an amazing doctor in the Dallas area, and he was confident that there would barely even be a scar. Coming out of surgery, he said to me, ‘The good news is your Achilles is fixed. The bad news is that it was completely off, it ripped off the bone.’ Instead of the very tiny scar, they had to slice the entire back of my foot open to surgically repair it.”

On developing the Ember Moon character: “Athena was a superhero. This character was larger than life. She was willing to stand up to the bullies … Ember was different. By then, I had grown up and experienced the world, and so much of Ember was based off Dungeons and Dragons and the Homeland novel by R.A. Salvatore. I related to it so much that I popped red contacts in and made my hair silver, which was my ode to Drizzt Do’Urden. I related to that on so many levels, the idea that you can be a good guy and still be fierce and ferocious. That magical realm sucked me in, which led to the creation of Ember Moon.”

On evolving her character: “We’re trying something new. You’re going to see more of me, Adrienne, as Ember Moon. And I’m so excited to work with Io Shirai. She is the top female wrestler in the world. I’ve said that for the last five years, and I’ve always wanted to wrestle her.”

On the NXT women’s division: “The NXT women’s division is so diverse, and we know the standard that was set by the women who were there before us. Now we’ll see how the new Ember Moon fits into the mix. I’ll be showing off myself in a new way for the first time, and I can’t wait for people to say, ‘Holy crap, I forgot how good Ember Moon is.’ The landscape has drastically changed in NXT since I was last here. There are going to be a lot of new matchups. Wrestling needs to be fun right now, not just for me but for everyone, and I’m going to bring that in NXT.”