Athena, the former Ember Moon, made news recently in speaking with Chris Van Vliet when recalling meetings where WWE encouraged female wrestlers to dress "sexier."
"We would have to sit through stupid meetings about how we'd have to dress sexy. I remember looking at someone else (and laughing). I cater to children. I'm not about to wear fishnet booty buttcheek shorts because we had a two-hour meeting about how to dress like Mandy Rose. That's not fair. Mandy is absolutely phenomenal and an amazing person, but not everyone is Mandy Rose. I started seeing this downslope as soon as Hunter was gone. For the first bit, we didn't know why, we just knew he wasn't there. I got so angry. I was sitting there thinking, 'I did nothing wrong. I didn't piss off Vince.' They take Shotzi away, Hunter is gone. 'You guys promised me this wouldn't happen. You promised I wouldn't be lost in the shuffle. I went on this losing streak to help you guys out and build other talent so I could get a reward,'" she recalled.
Fightful learned about these meetings several months ago, but couldn't get anyone on the record that attended them. We're now told they were NXT meetings under the guise of "fashion consulting" and "fashion aid" to play up the fact that the women on the brand were larger than life stars. The company brought Melanie Pace, a fashion expert in to conduct the meetings back in October 2021. One wrestler in NXT said that it was a stark contrast because prior, people on the roster were encouraged to either just wear their gear or an available merchandise shirt.
Several members of the roster expressed displeasure that the meetings took place, and pointed the finger at John Laurinaitis, as they started taking place when he regained power. Despite the blame, we've not been able to confirm he had anything to do with it.
One talent on background told us that they were encouraged to dress similarly backstage, and didn't outright say that "dressing sexier" was spoken aloud, but implied,
There were numerous women who refused to go to the meetings, which were seen as one of the big changes following Triple H's departure.
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