Thunder Rosa will walk into Sunday night’s Double or Nothing pay-per-view as the AEW Women’s World Champion. But “La Mera Mera” will be representing so much more than just herself as she walks down to the ring. Rosa spoke with ComicBook earlier this week about how her special ring gear for the event will be dedicated to women who have disappeared near the United States/Mexico border as well as the victims of the mass shooting in Uvalde, Texas, on May 24. She said, “I had a conversation with my media representative Tony, and my parents, actually, they were talking about it, about there’s a lot of concern because in the last couple years there’s been a lot of women that have disappeared in Mexico. And these women are young, between like 18 to 35. They went out to work, they went out to look for work, they went out to school, and they never came back. The only thing that everybody knows is that they’re missing and they’re probably dead. Right?
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“So I thought it would be a great idea for me to come out and just be representing the lost souls. And now, with the unfortunate situation that happened in Uvalde, Texas… As you know, I live in San Antonio. Uvalde is 45 minutes (away). And I’m very, very involved in the community. The fact that 19 kids died the way they did, it breaks my heart. But again, I was looking at the pictures of the kids and I was just remembering… I work with kids like that, and I know how difficult it is for the parents to lose their kids and to lose family members. So I really do want to, with everything that I’m wearing, just representing them, at every moment and every step,” she continued.
AEW Double or Nothing takes place tonight at the T-Mobile Arena in Las Vegas, Nevada, and will feature Rosa defending her title on pay-per-view for the first time as she takes on Serena Deeb. Stay tuned for full coverage of tonight’s event and check out the full interview with Rosa below.
How has your time as champion been so far?
Well, it feels really good. Yesterday I had an opportunity to do my… and I put it on Twitter, to do my first assembly with fifth graders here in Las Vegas. And just the fact that I’m carrying the title, and I’m able to talk to girls and boys that have similar backgrounds, it’s so moving. Because when I was asking some questions to some of the young girls, they had some of the same or very similar goals that I had when I was a young girl. And now they see me walking with a championship, and they see me on TV, and it’s just kind of like giving them hope that it doesn’t matter where they come from, that they can achieve anything they want.
And that’s the same thing that I feel with other women just in general, in the whole world, women and men that want to achieve their dreams of whatever that is. And then they see me and they’re like, “Wow, I saw her from being nobody to now being on top of the world.” So for me to represent in such a positive way is so important, inside and outside of the ring. So on Sunday, when I come in, I know that I’m going to be representing a lot, and I’m not going to be coming alone, let’s say. I’m coming with a whole army of people that support me. With a whole army of people that, unfortunately, they’re not here anymore, but I will be the one who’s championing their goals and dreams.
On top of everything you do with AEW, you also run Mission Pro Wrestling. Who from the roster do you think is on the verge of breaking out on the world stage?
Man, I love KiLynn King. I’ve seen her matches in our show and outside. She’s so passionate about wrestling, everything. I had an opportunity last year to travel with her. I just took her under my wing, I was like, “Let’s get booked in different places. Let’s wrestle each other.” And just seeing how much she loves professional wrestling and how much it means to her just reminds me so much of me, and those are the type of people/ We were working very closely with the Renegade Twins. They actually came and stayed with us in Texas. And there’s a lot of possibilities for them in the future. They’re very young. Hopefully they can get their gadgets together and really just put it in the next gear.
Who else? Man, I have so many. Jody Threat, she’s another one. I got to wrestle her. She’s from Canada. She is one of those hidden gems that you have to press live to be like, “Oh my God, this girl is something.” I haven’t watched her promos, but I’m pretty sure if she does some stuff like that, it will be kind of cool. But in ring-wise, those are the ones.
I’ve been catching up on the Taco Vlog. How’d you come up with that idea?
So it’s like always finding your niche, right? And everybody’s telling me, “Hey, Thunder, you should do something with food,” because I’m always eating. And people, when I was doing my vlogs, I’m always stuffing my face with food. And I love tacos and I was like, “Maybe you should just go and eat tacos everywhere.” I was just going to do it by myself and just check the thing out, just kind of like Food Network. But then they’re like, “Let’s do an interview.” And then I had Evil Uno, and it’s just from there, it took off. So it’s been really, really fun. I love sharing a lot of my culture with a lot of people that never had tacos or real authentic Mexican food. So it’s just fun to see their reactions. And it’s fun also to see how open they can become when they feel comfortable and they’re having a good dinner.
Because the whole thing is just to remember when… I mean, I don’t know about your family, but I had some of my best memories around the table, eating and sharing stuff and Christmas and all the holidays, just having like lunch or dinner. So I want to bring that to the table in the taco vlog so people feel comfortable to talk about whatever they want, as much or as little as possible, and also to have good food in their tummies.
Who has been the worst at handling spicy food? And why was it Powerhouse Hobbs?
It is Hobbs. He was being such a little… Oh my God. Like, “I don’t like…” That thing wasn’t even spicy! I just can’t. Usually, the big guys are the ones who are the most scaredy-cat.
It was so cool getting to see you break out the Wolverine gear a few months back. How long have you been an X-Men fan?
X-Men has always been one of my favorite cartoons, I think. I remember a lot of the cartoons, when I was little, I used to watch them in Channel 6, black-and-white, because we didn’t have a regular TV. It’s like, little TV, and that was the only channel I can watch, so I’ll watch it. And I remember watching it and not understanding anything they were saying because it was in English. So I just liked the action. Then they translated them, and they used to play them on TV, Mexican TV. So we were glued to it, and I loved the storytelling or everything, how the mutants, how they didn’t like it. And I don’t know, I just identify myself with the mutants because I always feel like an outsider, everywhere. And for Wolverine, I think it’s… Once the movies came out and stuff, they give it more of a human part of him and made him more mainstream.
And then, when they make the girl from Spain (Dafne Keen in Logan) play the daughter, she looked a lot like when I was little, so everybody always made fun of me. Like, “You should call her Wolverine because she looks like you.” And I did it, and everybody lost their crap. And I really enjoy it. I’m reading more old, excellent comic books, and I also have my own personal comic book because I think it’s important to tell your story in an easier way that everybody can relate to, with images. So yeah, it’s my thing with X-Men.
Are there any other mutants you’d like to portray?
They had designed one for Magneto, a Magneto one. I really love Magneto and his motives about why he hates humans and everybody else.
What do you think the next big step for the AEW Women’s Division is?
There’s so many things that we can do to enhance what we have. I don’t know. It is very hard for me to answer that question because, like I said, everything can go in many different directions. Right? And as a champion, I really do want to be there and be flexible and be able to help build up our new talent. And I think that’s very important.
It’s just like, again, there’s a lot of stuff we can do, I think, to make the AEW even better than what it is. And like I said, there’s a lot of people, a lot of knowledge. Mercedes Martinez is here. I am here. I run my own promotion with women. There are so many other people that have worked with women, and we’re all ready to be all hands on deck. So I think there are a lot of things that we can do. And we will continue to do positive strides, to continue to be one of the best, if not the best division.
