A championship can elevate a wrestler if the company puts the proper effort behind it, and the champ can also elevate the title through hard work. When it comes to Thunder Rosa and the AEW Women’s World Championship, she’s apparently only feeling the love in one direction right now.
Andy Murray of WhatCulture cited sources close to Rosa while reporting this week that she “has become very frustrated with how little she has been onscreen.” As the most relevant example, Rosa wasn’t included in this week’s episode of Dynamite, while every other AEW champion was.
On top of that, Murray notes that Rosa was irked about not being invited to speak at the Double or Nothing post-media scrum on Sunday night after the pay-per-view — and time wasn’t a factor, since it lasted until after 3 a.m. ET. Rosa may have used an appearance there to call more attention to her plan to auction her eye-catching ring gear from the show to raise money for the families and victims of the Uvalde school shooting, an auction that is now underway.
If Rosa does have a gripe, it’s legit. Since winning the AEW Women’s World Championship from Britt Baker on the March 16 episode of Dynamite, she’s defended it twice: against Nyla Rose at Battle of the Belts II, and then against Serena Deeb at Double or Nothing. That’s fairly standard, but Rosa didn’t wrestle anyone else during that time, not did she show up on Dynamite or Rampage all that much.
[lawrence-related id=1161]
Rosa and Deeb put on one of Sunday night’s best matches from a pure wrestling standpoint, but the build-up to the bout was spotty at best, and then the champ didn’t appear on TV on Wednesday to capitalize on it. Some frustration on her part is easy to understand.
The relationship between a champion and their promotion is ideally a two-way street, with the titleholder representing the championship and the company to the best of their abilities and getting a spotlight on them in return. At least for now, that isn’t happening for Rosa, and it will be worth watching to see if AEW can change that in its upcoming shows.