"Our goal was to surpass that" - Mercedes Martinez looks back on legendary match with former ECW star
Current Interim ROH Women's Champion Mercedes Martinez has been involved in many high-profile matches in her 20-plus year career. She has now taken the time to look back on one of her most groundbreaking matches.
The 41-year old star has wrestled for some of the biggest promotions in the world in the last two decades, including WWE, ROH and now AEW, facing some iconic opponents along the way.
One of those opponents was former ECW star Angel Orsini, who went by the name "The Prodigette" during her stint with Extreme Championship Wrestling in 2000.
Speaking on the most recent episode of the AEW Unrestricted podcast, Mercedes Martinez discussed an Iron Woman match that she had with the former ECW star in 2009 that was over an hour long:
“USW was the company that we worked for. I think it was like 70 minutes, 71 minutes probably, but it was the first of its kind. If you got Iron Woman matches or a woman’s wrestler, they’d go ‘maybe 30 minutes’ but anybody can do a 30 minute match nowadays. But back then it was like ‘yes, girls can do 30 minutes’ and our goal was to surpass that, keep pushing the boundaries of women’s wrestling.” [26:20-26:48]
Martinez also took the time to give credit to Orsini, who isn't remembered as much as other ECW names from back in the day.
“You know what I give credit to Angel Orsini, and let’s backtrack for her just a minute. Angel Orsini people don’t give her credit, if you look back at her career she was part of ECW as The Prodigette and Jason Knight brought her into our training facility into the company that he was running at that time.” [25:43-26:00]
Check it ECW Original Fans! THE PRODIGETTE is still going STRONG!!! New SPW Women's Champion for Spartan Championship Wrestling! THE ARCANGEL OF PRO WRESTLING ~ @TheAngelOrsini ~ #OriginalECW4Life twitter.com/TheAngelOrsini…
Mercedes Martinez faces another tough opponent this Wednesday on AEW Dynamite
After winning the Interim ROH Women's Championship at the Supercard of Honor event on April 1st, Mercedes Martinez will finally get the opportunity to unify her title against current champion Deonna Purrazzo.
Purrazzo was unable to compete at Supercard of Honor due to being booked for an IMPACT Wrestling event on the same day, resulting in an Interim Championship being created.
#AEWDynamite.@DeonnaPurrazzo is coming back to claim her title 💪 #AEWDynamite https://t.co/aKJbOASy9T
Martinez and Purrazzo have history against each other in singles competition, with the two women having already faced each other in the past. At the time of writing, Purrazzo has three wins with one being a disqualification, while Martinez also has three wins. However those wins all came back in 2016 and 2018.
Who do you think will win this match? Let us know in the comments section down below!
Please credit AEW Unrestricted and give a H/T to Sportskeeda Wrestling when using quotes from this article.