This is the fourth installment of Why She Matters, a recurring feature from The Luchadora Project about luchadoras working outside the spotlight, what makes them worth watching, and why their work matters.
I think it’s safe to say that Olympia owns October.
No, really.
Look at her record. She has ten wins in eleven recorded CMLL matches. Her only loss is to Tessa Blanchard, a woman CMLL has protected more than anyone else and gave wins against Starlight Kid and Momo Watanabe in the last few weeks. Olympia has won eight straight entering tonight’s Grand Prix. Of course that count includes tag matches and her Universal qualifying cybernetico, but however you divide the work, CMLL has been giving her plenty of it.
Look at last weekend.
Friday night, she main evented Arena Mexico, beating Skadi for the Universal championship. On Saturday, she main evented Arena Coliseo, defending the national tag titles alongside her sister Hera against Zeuxis and Keyra.
CMLL calls October the month of the Amazonas. I think Olympia has been making a case for changing the name.
But to understand how we got here, we have to go back to the end of September.
The Fans Helped Put Her Here
On September 25, Olympia and Hera defeated Skadi and Kira in the main event of Noches de Campeones, ending their 931-day reign.
And the fans helped put them there.
Las Valientitas received 18,357 votes, taking 54 percent of the vote to challenge for the national tag titles. That was more than Las Reinas del Strong Style (Keyra and Zeuxis) and Las Infernales (Dark Silueta and Valkyria) combined. The women’s tag team championship also drew the most votes of any title on the show, putting it in the main event.
Think about that for a second.
On a card that included Averno defending against Soberano Jr., the womens tag titles went on last.
Those votes don’t establish the sisters as ticket sellers. But CMLL asked its fans what they wanted to see, and this was their answer.
Late in the match, Olympia pressed Skadi overhead, lowered her across her chest, then threw her backwards. The finish saw the sisters lift Kira and toss her onto Skadi before covering the champions.
The two daughters of Valiente had spent years chasing those belts, and they finally had them.
Back in May 2024, they told El Grafico they wanted to become the first sisters to hold the championships. They had already challenged before and lost.
Twice.
This time it stuck.
Olympia has hardly stopped winning since.
A week after the title change, she eliminated Keyra and Zeuxis to win the rudas’ Universal qualifier. Two weeks later, she beat Skadi in the final. The next night , she was back defending their championships.
The poll may have got the sisters their opportunity. Olympia’s October has given CMLL a reason to keep finding her more.
For a series about luchadoras working outside the spotlight, this is a particularly useful time to write about her, as it seems like the spotlight is shifting.
In fact, on shows that have featured CMLL Women’s World Champion Persephone, Stardom’s AZM and Momo Watanabe, Tessa Blanchard, and others, it’s Olympia that has felt like the biggest deal.
That deserves a closer look.
Her Strength Is More Than Her Power
The power is the obvious place to start with Olympia. I mean, she named herself after the Mr. Olympia bodybuilding competition, and won the Amazonas division of CMLL’s own contest a year ago, which she’s likely to repeat.
All that being said, her strength is a substantial part of how she presents herself and how she wrestles.
In fact, she’s drawn comparisons to Megan Bayne for her combination of strength, athleticism, and ring gear. That’s all fine until you see them standing across from each other and notice how much larger Megasus is.
That makes their March match at Noche de Las Amazonas a good place to start on why I think Olympia matters.
Olympia is accustomed to being the powerhouse. Against Bayne, she has to work underneath somebody considerably bigger.
Still, she gets Bayne across her shoulders and starts doing squats. If you’ve ever watched Olympia, you’ve seen this spot. It’s a trademark.
Later, she presses Bayne overhead, holds her there, lowers her across her chest and throws her backwards. She even gave the audience time to appreciate her strength, and give herself time to be obnoxious about it.
But the Universal final against Skadi demonstrates a different level of her range.
Midway through the match, Olympia carries Skadi across her shoulders on the entrance ramp before dropping backwards into a Samoan drop. Moments later, she runs down the ramp and dives onto Skadi at ringside. Later comes a springboard crossbody to the floor.
Olympia’s aerial offense is an underrated part of her presentation. Calling her a powerhouse doesn’t quite account for how much of this match she spends launching herself at the much larger Skadi.
Olympia can meet Skadi in a strength exchange, but she also finds ways to attack without having to lift her every time. The springboards let her change the pace and make Skadi deal with a moving target.
Even the familiar corner handstand belongs in that description. Olympia holds herself upside down on the turnbuckle before swinging her boots into a seated opponent. Sure, it requires balance and control, but it also serves the same purpose as the squats: She gets to show you something before delivering the impact. She isn’t just doing moves, as some luchadoras are guilty of doing, but she’s giving you personality that adds to the whole presentation.
The match with Bayne also gives her a reason to find other ways to wrestle. Olympia uses the ropes to spring into an arm drag, taking the larger woman off her feet without having to get underneath her and lift. She can use balance and agility when trying to overpower somebody is going to be a considerable amount of work.
The tag match gives us another example. Olympia drops Kira from her shoulders, then springs off the ropes into a crossbody against Skadi. Within seconds, she’s gone from carrying one opponent to flying at the other.
That’s part of what makes her offense so interesting. She can stay on the mat and throw somebody around, but you also have to account for what she can do once she gets to the ropes. Describing her as simply a powerhouse leaves out quite a bit of the match.
It’s not just her offense, but her selling that’s impressive.
Against Persephone in February, Olympia takes a springboard kick square to the chest and goes flat onto her back. She commits to the bump and makes the kick look like it landed like a shotgun blast. In her match with Bayne, she allowed herself to be thrown around too.
It’s part of what makes a match good: neither woman had to stop looking dangerous so Olympia can look strong.
In the Universal final, Skadi loads Olympia across her shoulders in the corner, steps along the rope and drops backward into the Samoan drop. Olympia gets her boot onto the bottom rope to break the count. It’s a good near fall: Skadi gets an impressive showcase for her own strength, and Olympia survives without kicking out of the move. That gives the falling powerbomb that follows a much stronger finish to build toward.
I think Olympia is starting to put those pieces together. The power and presentation gives her an attraction people recognize, but she can vary a match with her flying, give her offense some personality and make an opponent’s work look good, too. Against Skadi, those qualities help sustain a singles main event. That’s a good reason for CMLL to keep giving her opportunities after October.
Can She Really Remain a Ruda?
The funny thing about Olympia’s showing off is that I’d like her to keep doing it.
The squats are arrogant. Holding somebody overhead is arrogant. Pausing upside down before kicking somebody is probably unnecessary, which seems to be part of the point.
But here’s the thing: it’s entertaining.
Olympia continually gives the audience something to enjoy about her, even when she’s being obnoxious.
Then add the sisters winning the championship fans voted for them to challenge for, followed by Olympia winning the Universal championship. CMLL has spent a month giving people reasons to get behind her.
It’s clear, fans want to cheer for Olympia.
But that doesn’t automatically require a technica turn. Wrestling audiences have been cheering heels since before Olympia was born. Besides, I wouldn’t want Olympia to lose the attitude simply because she’s changed corners, either. The showing off is part of what makes her work.
I can, though, see a much larger role for her on the techica side.
After the Universal finals, cubsfan wrote that Olympia “feels like the person the women’s division will be built around before long.” With two championship wins in roughly four weeks, he noted, that process was already underway.
Perhaps we should have noticed on September 2, when CMLL revealed its 93rd Anniversario logo (spoiler alert: it was a number 93). Fans noticed that CMLl chose to highlight Olympia as one of four luchadoras featured on its promotional bus: Lluvia and Persephone on one side, Olympia and India Sioux on the other. The company was already putting her in front of people as one of the faces of the amazonas.
I’ve said before that Kira is the next star of the division. I’ve also said that Tessa is clearly being built up to be the one to beat Persephone.
I won’t make a third prediction.
But Olympia has made me reconsider what I want to see.
A month ago, I was more interested in seeing Keyra and Zeuxis challenge Skadi and Kira and thought the fans got it wrong. All it took was one match for me to change my mind. I was suddenly invested in watching these two second generation sisters winning their championships.
Which brings me to Persephone.
Persephone’s own rise is part of why I find this interested. She lost to Mercedes Moné last October, won the Grand Prix a week later, then returned to beat Mercedes for the world championship in March.
CMLL kept investing in her between the loss and the rematch. By the time she won the title, there was a progression to reward.
Olympia already has the February loss to Perse. Now she has the Universal and national tag championships, and a month of main events behind her. There’s something to revisit there.
Olympia has made me interested in a potential title pursuit I wasn’t thinking about a month ago. I want to see how she works a longer singles program, how her offense develops across repeated meetings with the same opponent, and whether the audience’s investment carries into that prusuit.
Here’s the thing, though. CMLL shouldn’t rush it.
Part of what made Persephone’s eventual win over Mercedes was that CMLL continued building her after the first loss. CMLL has an opprotunity to create their next big thing using the same process.
Another reason they shouldn’t rush it is that I’m interested in the tag team too. I changed my mind about the sisters because of what they did together. I want their championship reign to get the matches and attention that makes it worth following.
Last weekend showed how these two ambitions can coexist: Olympia in a singles final on Friday, defending the tag titles with Hera on Saturday.
Tonight’s Grand Prix is another opportunity. Winning would add considerably to Olympia’s October, but I don’t need another trophy to be convinced she deserves more substantial work once the calendar changes.
Olympia matters because she’s making good on the potential CMLL is asking us to see. The physique gets noticed. Her work in the ring makes the matches worth seeking out. She and Hera made me care about a title change I hadn’t wanted. She and Skadi made me want to see her in more singles main events.
That’s a pretty good month’s work. I can’t wait to see what she does with the next one.