Thunder Rosa says she ‘took accountability,’ apologized to AEW locker room

[Big Red Machine]

https://www.f4wonline.com/news/aew/thun ... ocker-room

IAN CAREYAPR 14, 2023


Thunder Rosa has addressed criticism of her remaining AEW Women's champion for months while injured.

The end to Rosa's title reign last year has been a focal point of episodes of AEW All Access recently, with Britt Baker critical of Rosa remaining champion for months while injured. Rosa addressed these concerns today on Busted Open Radio, saying the decision not to vacate the belt immediately was made by Tony Khan.

Rosa said:

First and foremost I want to make sure that people understand that at the beginning of all this drama, everybody was speculating that I wasn't hurt, it started with that. And then it was proven that I was hurt. There's MRIs, they talked to my doctor, I had multiple epidurals and now, I'm still not cleared. I had another MRI last week and the pain is still there.

For me personally, I wanted to drop the title the day that they told me I couldn't wrestle because I was going to be out for four to six weeks.



Rosa continued:

My boss made that decision. He said, 'You are going to be the champion and we will have an interim champion.' For me, as a competitor, I wanted to make it fair so my peers had a chance to [wrestle for] the championship because it wasn't fair that I wasn't there, I wasn't going to be there, and I was going to hold the title.

Rosa is hoping the focus of the AEW women's division will now be on the active storylines in the company and not the issues between her and Baker. She's been back on the road with the company since February working on the Spanish broadcast team and says she's apologized to the locker room since returning.


We got to respect the people that are now representing the company. I'm representing the company in a different manner. I have talked to the locker room and I took accountability for things that some people had issues with and I went out there and apologized. And that's the best thing that I can do because I want to make money, I want to make sure that I am able to work with everyone regardless of if we have any issues or not.

Earlier in the show, Rosa revealed that she recently experienced a setback in her recovery.


I have not been cleared. There's more things that have happened in the last couple of weeks because I've gotten in the ring. Unfortunately, the pain is still there and it's very frustrating because I want to get in the ring and I want to do what I do best, that is wrestle.

[Big Red Machine]

It seems to me that Tony's obsession with the idea of an "interim title" has caused him A LOT of trouble. Yes, obviously it wouldn't have happened if the personalities involved had been more mellow, but you can say that about a lot of situations.

[cero2k]

It seems to me that Tony's obsession with the idea of an "interim title" has caused him A LOT of trouble. Yes, obviously it wouldn't have happened if the personalities involved had been more mellow, but you can say that about a lot of situations.

From the opinions I've heard from MMA, it seems to be a general thought on 'interim titles'. I much rather have that than vacant titles all the time, but there's a need for a strict protocol

[Big Red Machine]

It seems to me that Tony's obsession with the idea of an "interim title" has caused him A LOT of trouble. Yes, obviously it wouldn't have happened if the personalities involved had been more mellow, but you can say that about a lot of situations.

From the opinions I've heard from MMA, it seems to be a general thought on 'interim titles'. I much rather have that than vacant titles all the time, but there's a need for a strict protocol

But this isn't MMA, and both fans and wrestlers see it as a "less-than" thing because in MMA you reign is essentially less-than unless you justify it by beating the champ for the real title.
Also, I could be wrong, but I think wrestling fans are much more into counting title reigns (and especially the idea of being something like "the first-ever two-time world champion" in a promotion), and that caused some problems that probably wouldn't have existed if this was later in AEW's existence.