Willow Nightingale On Making AEW Debut Against Thunder Rosa, Reaction To Being Offered Contract

Willow Nightingale is a part of the AEW roster, and she recently recalled her AEW debut match against Thunder Rosa and her reaction to being offered a contract in October. Nightingale appeared on AEW Unrestricted, and you can check out a couple of highlights below:

On making her AEW debut against Thunder Rosa: “It was [against Rosa]. So obviously it was like very nerve-wracking for me. I’m coming in, doing enhancement talent work. I don’t know a lot of the people there. But on the other hand, there are like a fair amount of people that I know from doing independent shows. So there’s this mixed kind of like, is it casual, is it formal, where do I draw the line of feeling comfortable and not trying to seem overly friendly and comfortable with people.

“So having my first match with someone like Thunder Rosa, who I’d known for years at this point and already wrestled, I was like, ‘Okay, whew.’ I can wipe my sweat of my forehead, this is a little bit easier than say, somebody who is maybe AEW home-grown and I’ve never met before, I’ve never worked with them, I don’t know them. They don’t know me. So that was an easier first step. And luckily, I think it went well.”

On getting the offer of an AEW contract: “I honestly was not expecting for it to be as emotional as it was. But I think there was like this moment I had where I looked around, and the fact that everyone was so excited in the building. And it was the same Jacksonville building where I was sitting front row during the pandemic and having those feelings of this is never gonna happen, and I was like, ‘Well s**t, here we are.’ And all these people here are excited for me. It’s not just my own selfish lie, ‘Hell yeah, I did what I set out to do.’ But like, all of these people are also super stoked to see it happen. So it just kind of hit me in a way I really wasn’t expecting when I was in the ring.

“And I remember I went online after. And of course people on Twitter are like, ‘I mean, she’s All Elite. Obviously she signed a contract, why is she acting so surprised? Like, she knows she’s signed.’ I was like, yeah, you’re right. But I wasn’t — the way that the emotions hit me was, I just really wasn’t expecting that.”

If you use any of the quotes in this article, please credit AEW Unrestricted with a h/t to 411mania.com for the transcription.