Thunder Rosa reflected on her challenging journey back to wrestling after a debilitating back injury that kept her sidelined from AEW for months.
Speaking on the AEW Unrestricted podcast, she described the past year as the most difficult of her life, both physically and mentally. The injury left her feeling as though her identity as a wrestler had been taken away, and she had to rebuild herself step by step.
Rosa opened up about experiencing severe mental health struggles, including suicidal thoughts, exacerbated by harsh criticism from some fans and a sense of being unsupported by certain colleagues. She shared how hateful comments, such as accusations of avoiding putting others over, deeply hurt her during her recovery.
Despite these challenges, Rosa gradually regained her strength and confidence through physical rehabilitation, a strong support network, and therapy.
She credited her family, close friends, and colleagues like Alvaro and Alex Abrahantes for helping her through her darkest moments. Commentary work, particularly with AEW and Busted Open Radio, also provided her a fresh perspective on wrestling and helped her find her voice.
Now back in action, Rosa is grateful for every moment in the ring and views it as a blessing, determined to remain resilient and stronger than ever.
Here’s what the former AEW Women’s World Champion said:
“That was probably the worst year of my life, period, especially physically, mentally. Just imagine, you can run, you can jump, and they just cut your legs, you can’t do that. Had to learn how to walk, had to learn how to run again, had to learn how to do a bunch of stuff again.
I’m going to the extreme, but this is how it feels, when they take something that you identify yourself with for so long, and they just take it away, and they’re like, ‘No, you can’t have it, you gotta to earn it again.’ So it was very rough, and it was very mentally rough.
I spoke about this very openly, I had suicidal thoughts for a long time because with all the layers I had, not only the injury, it was like, I don’t feel like, certain people didn’t give me the chance, and some of the fans just turned on me, and the comments they were making, they were awful, awful.
Like, ‘Go kill yourself. You don’t want to put the people over.’ It hurt so bad that at times, I couldn’t deal with it. I just couldn’t. I wanted to defend this title, I wanted to give my best, but I physically couldn’t do it. It just ate me. But I utilized the resources, I got physically stronger, I stopped having pain, which allowed me to exercise, which allowed me to get back in the ring, so little by little, I started gaining my confidence back, and I think that was the one thing, I allowed people to take my confidence away from me.
So this injury really broke my spirit, and everything that came with the injury, but I fought through it, I have a very strong team that was with me. They were there for me, and a lot of my very close friends, they helped me tremendously. At the time, I had a really good therapist who helped me with a lot of the issues that I was dealing with because it wasn’t only, ‘I want to get back.’ It was all this ideas and things.
They broke how Thunder Rosa was. I had control of everything, and everything just fell apart, and I had control of nothing. So I had to let it roll and let it happen. When I was [doing] commentary, there was times I was having panic attacks because it was just so hard that I couldn’t be in the ring. It was hard, but I endured.
I was like, ‘F**k it, I’m gonna come stronger and nothing is gonna faze me anymore.’ Commentary helped me so much to really see professional wrestling in a different way, and also broadcasting, that gave me the strength and a voice. Ever since then, it’s just been. I enjoy, and I am blessed every time I step in the ring because I never know when this is gonna be taken away. It’s a blessing.”
WATCH: Thunder Rosa Shows Her Buns During a Photoshoot:
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