EXCLUSIVE: Maya World details process of finding out she was going to be in the Owen Hart Foundation Tournament

AEW wrestler Maya World’s brother, Jatwane, was killed in a traffic accident earlier this month. With the AEW TV tapings and ROH TV tapings set to take place a short time after the tragic death of her brother, World didn’t make the decision to go to the tapings until 9:00 PM. the day before she was set to fly out, as she felt it was right for her to go.

“Yeah, no, well, it, the decision for me, it was kind of like, you know, I think I flew in that Wednesday morning, so it was, like, the day before at, like, 9:00 PM,” said World during an interview on Radican Worldwide available now for PWTorch VIP members. “I finally was like, ‘Hey, please, like, you know, I’m, I’m okay to be there. Just, like, let me be there.’”

World said prior to making the decision to go to TV, she had spent the previous few days mourning her brother with her closest family members.” ‘Cause at that point, my brother passed at 3:00 AM Sunday morning,” said World. “So, as soon as we got the news, we all, my whole family were together. Like, all 20 of us, well, all 20 of the closest ones that are in the area.

“We had came together, and we had been together for the past, like, literally barely sleeping on and off from that Sunday at 3:00 AM till that Wednesday morning when I finally drove to the airport. Like, we had been together for so long, just a lot of crying and tears and just trying to distract ourselves, just playing games, just doing, like, just trying to be together.”

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World said she knew she needed a distraction and was hoping to get a match against someone from Stardom or CMLL during the tapings set to take place for ROH Global Wars. “So,I just felt like I needed to get away,” said World. I knew I was gonna, you know, I knew Thurs- that come Thursday I was gonna be back, be back into that crying and all that.

“So, I was just like, ‘Please just let me get away from this. I just need to be distracted. I wanna be at work. I wanna have a match. Like, I wanna wrestle.’ Um, and I was just expecting, you know, like, a Global Wars, like, um, wrestle someone from someone from Stardom or CMLL, ’cause, I love Stardom. So, like, I was like, you know, ‘Just let me, let me wrestle someone. I don’t even care. I just wanna get my mind off of this.’ So I, it was a very easy decision to go to work whenever I finally, like, decided.”

World wasn’t originally scheduled to be in the Women’s Owen Hart Foundation Tournament, but Stardom wrestler Saree was not cleared to compete by AEW’s medical team. AEW owner and booker Tony Khan delivered the news to World she was going to take Saree’s place in the tournament against Sky Blue. “I was in a little bit of a shock when Tony told me,” said World. “So, I remember him saying it, and then I was confused for a second.

“And then I was like, ‘Oh, wow.’ Like, I got really emotional after the match (against Sky Blue). Like, I broke down crying as soon as I got through the curtain, but before that I kind of was in a shock and I just had to instantly like, ‘Okay, you gotta go.’ Like, I couldn’t even be, like, emotional as I wanted to be because I just thought, ‘Wow.’ The Owen, I mean, it means a lot to me just because I know Owen and his story and everything.”

World didn’t expect to be in the tournament this year and said she never got discouraged when she didn’t see her name in the original bracket. “So just being in it, I didn’t expect that,” said World. “And when the bracket came out, I was hoping, and you know, I wasn’t in it, and I was okay with that. Like, wait your turn. I’m like six months into my, you know, contract.

“I’m like, [laughs] you know, it’s new. So, um- I mean, I never got discouraged. I was like, ‘Okay, I’m not in it’ like, ‘There’s other things to do,’ you know? So, when I got that, it was just a lot of shock, and like I was just, I had to instantly rewire my brain to like, ‘Okay, we gotta go,’ you know?”

World said not knowing she was going to be in the tournament was better than knowing in some ways because she didn’t have time to think about anything other than she wanted to win for her brother. “And Sky Blue’s been someone I had been wanting to face too, so it was kind of like, ‘Okay, I finally get this match, but it’s also for this, so I gotta make sure I win for my brother,” said World.

”It’s like, i, and like as soon as I said that, I was like, ‘Okay, I gotta win for my brother.’ Like, it’d been two days since he passed. It was so fresh, and it’s still like it’s fresh now. So, I just had like my re- my brain was just like, ‘Win,’ and that was all that, that was all it was.”

The way the bracket unfolded, World ended up beating her mentor, Athena, in the semi-finals to advance to face her wrestling idol Mercedes Mone at the Forbidden Door PPV in the finals of the Owen Hart Foundation Tournament on June 28. World’s inspirational run through the tournament and facing two opponents so close to her heart has seemed like something out of a fairytale.

World said the craziness of her run through tournament hasn’t sunk in yet for her. “It’s honestly like I said, I had been so numb,” said World. “I don’t even know if it still has even settled in yet. If like, even the fact that when I beat Athena, it definitely didn’t set in until like maybe a day or two after.

“It was like, ‘Wow, I’m really doing it.’ Because again, I just had to rewire my brain to win. And it is kind of written in the stars. I honestly just thought about it, like how I, that’s who I replaced, and how it was set up, and things like that. Um, but I mean, it just for me in particular, I just, like I said, I knew if I, like when I beat Athena, I honestly wasn’t even focused on Mercedes yet. ‘Cause I’m like, ‘This is already a tall task.’”

World is set to face her hero, Mercedes Mone, in the finals of the Women’s Owen Hart Foundation Tournament on June 28 at the Forbidden Door PPV. The match is being billed as being part of a triple main event alongside Swerve Strickland vs. Will Ospreay in the Men’s Owen Hart Foundation Tournament Final and Team MJF vs. Team Mark Briscoe in a 12 Man Steel Cage match. The show will be available to watch on PPV on HBO Max, traditional PPV providers, and PPV.com. Starting at 8 p.m. ET. The Zero Hour pre-show will air free on HBO Max and YouTube beginning at 7 p.m. ET.

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