Thunder Rosa is currently out of action due to injury, though many are still of the belief that the supposed back injury is fictional.
AEW Women’s World Champion Thunder Rosa stepped down as champion in a tearful promo on Dynamite’s 24 August broadcast. An interim champion has since been crowned in her absence, that being Rosa’s ThunderStorm partner Toni Storm, but Storm is among those who believe the injury may not be all it’s made out to be.
Writing in this week’s Wrestling Observer Newsletter, Dave Meltzer addressed Rosa’s status, reaffirming that her injury – an undisclosed back issue – is indeed real. Even before she was hurt, though, Thunder Rosa was the source of tension within the AEW locker room:
“Regarding the Thunder Rosa injury, one of the issues is a lot of people in wrestling think she’s not hurt although we are told the back injury is legit and she stopped wrestling because of the fear she would need surgery if she kept going. As noted before, because she told of the injury hours after being told she would be dropping the title to Toni Storm on the PPV, it created a lot of conjecture about it with the Shawn Michaels in the ’90s comparisons. The idea is she’ll be out two to three months and face Storm in a unification match.
But the women’s side of the promotion, while not as explosive as the men this past week, did have divisive issues regarding Rosa before the injury and even more after because she didn’t drop it in the ring before taking the time off. There was a lot of division among many of the women and Rosa, basically the ones who made public comments that insinuated her injury wasn’t that bad or those who privately felt due to the timing of her saying her injury was serious and she’d need time off after being told she was dropping the title to Toni Storm.
A lot of people took Storm’s comment of Rosa “says she’s injured” and she would wrestle Rosa when she says she’s not injured as her not believing Rosa was really injured.”
It’s unknown when, exactly, Thunder Rosa will return to competition. When she does, a title unification bout vs. Toni Storm will no doubt be one of her first clashes back, as was the case when both the AEW World and TNT Championships had interim holders.
Following news of her injury, it’s circulated on social media that she’d requested her release from AEW. These rumours were quickly shot down by numerous members of the wrestling media, but it’s not clear how much longer is left on Thunder Rosa’s current AEW contract.