When Thunder Rosa announced on the Aug. 24, 2022 episode of AEW Dynamite that she would be unable to defend her title for some time due to injury, it initially didn’t seem like such a big deal. An interim championship was created, something for which there was a precedent in AEW — the AEW World Championship for the men had gone through the same thing earlier in the year.
But as Rosa’s absence dragged on, it became a bone of contention within the women’s division that the “real” championship was in limbo while she was out. The “AEW: All Access” series that’s been airing after Dynamite on Wednesday nights has only made that clearer, with a number of wrestlers (particularly Britt Baker, who is a focal point of the show) expressing their frustrations with the situation.
Eventually, AEW CEO and GM Tony Khan decided to strip Rosa of her title in late November and make the interim title reigns of Toni Storm and Jamie Hayter part of the lineal championship history. It seemed like the right thing to do at the time since there was no ETA on Rosa’s return (and she still hasn’t returned to active competition).
Yet there’s another side to the story, and it’s an important one. Rosa got a chance to explain her feelings on being forced to relinquish the championship during her latest Friday co-host stint on the SiriusXM Busted Open show, and she said that what bothered her most wasn’t Khan’s decision but the fact that she didn’t have a chance to go on TV and address it.
“When I got the news that I wasn’t going to keep the title, it like really caught me by surprise, and I was like ‘oh today is the day, OK,'” Rosa said. “I wasn’t able to go. I wasn’t there to be able to get in the ring and say ‘guys, unfortunately we made a decision, here is the title, thank you very much for letting me have the opportunity to represent’ … That opportunity wasn’t given to me.”
Statement made from @thunderrosa22 on #bustedopen with @davidlagreca1 pic.twitter.com/RRMh9AOYEY
— SiriusXM Busted Open (@BustedOpenRadio) April 14, 2023
Rosa reiterated that she feels it’s important that AEW focuses on the women’s division, which it historically hasn’t always been great about doing in terms of time devoted to women’s matches per show. That said, the current storyline pitting Hayter, Baker and others against The Outcasts is the most broad, cohesive narrative the division has ever had, which has been good to see.
As for Rosa, while her future with AEW remains uncertain, but hopefully her chance to explain her own disappointment with the way the title transfer was handled will help smooth over some of the discontent her fellow wrestlers obviously felt for a decent chunk of 2022.