Moné never let herself believe that she wouldn’t be back in the ring.
Kicking off AEW Dynamite: Big Bu$iness from the TD Garden in Boston, Massachusetts was the arrival of Mercedes Moné. It was formally announced that Mercedes signed with All Elite Wrestling.
Coming out of her AEW arrival, she is making the media rounds and one of her stops was Sports Illustrated. She spoke about the ankle/foot injury she suffered in May of 2023. She was told by a surgeon that it was career-ending.
Moné said she hadn’t been that hurt since WWE Hell in a Cell 2019 where she faced Becky Lynch for the Raw Women’s Championship. She said her pelvis was out of place for eight months following that match.
I got an MRI in May, and the surgeon told me, ‘This is career-ending.’ That was the biggest shock in my whole life. I’d never really been injured like this before. My worst injury before this was from Hell in a Cell in 2019, when my pelvis was out of place for eight months. This was so much more painful. People thought it was just a broken ankle. I was non-weight bearing for three months. It was a fight every day. It was devastating when I was told I was never going to come back. But I always knew I would be back, and I told that to my surgeon. Now I’m healthy and my surgeon is calling his mentor saying, ‘Look at what happened here, it’s incredible.’ I don’t like being told no. I always believed I would be back, and now it’s true.
Circling back to the topic of Big Bu$iness, Moné felt she needed to open the show. When her music played and she heard the crowd, she knew she was home.
F— yeah, I needed to open the show (AEW Dynamite: Big Bu$iness). All day, I was so full of energy. Ten minutes before the show, I was in Gorilla. I could feel the energy in the building. When my music hit, I felt the energy and I knew I was home, and I’ve honestly been thinking about what I wanted to say for the past year. When I finally signed with AEW, I put even more thought into it. I decided to speak from my heart. That’s what I did, and the crowd made it so special for me. Everything started in Boston. I wouldn’t be ‘The CEO’ if it wasn’t for my time here. That’s why I mentioned wrestling in North Andover. I remember looking up and reading about so many wrestling schools. I learned about Chaotic Wrestling when I was 12. When I was 16, I emailed them — but I was too young. When I was 18, I signed up for a fantasy camp. I was the only woman there. I won it, got to train at Chaotic for free, and they created a championship for me so women could come and wrestle me. And I was only 18. That place created so much magic for me. It was a place for me to dream and become who I am.
To close the show, Willow Nightingale scored a win over Riho in singles competition but was ambushed afterwards by Skye Blue and TBS Champion Julia Hart. Making the save was Mercedes and following that, Nightingale gave the ring to Mercedes for coming to her aid.
