Updated: Apr 7
What Does Tony Khan Do With The Former AEW Women’s Champion?
It's looking like the storm has cleared in the AEW Women's locker room between Thunder Rosa and her fellow competitors, so can we expect to see her back on top of the promotion again?
By Trapper Tom Leturgey - February 28, 2023
It was August 24 of last year when Thunder Rosa gave a tearful goodbye to the AEW Women’s Championship, noting that a back injury was the culprit. Unfortunately, her time at the top of the Women’s division wasn’t as fruitful as many of us would have imagined.
But Thunder Rosa was twerking last week for subscribers of her paywall platforms. Could she be headed back to in-ring action?
It will soon be a year since Melissa Cervantes, 36, defeated Britt Baker, ending her 290-day run as AEW Women’s champion. Some 172 days later, Thunder Rosa handed the belt back over and was practically never mentioned again on Wednesday and Friday nights.
Her reign at the top seemed snakebitten from the start. So far, the story between Baker, 31, and Cervantes was the best-told, long-distance tale in the AEW Women’s division. There was the “Unsanctioned, Lights Out, Anything Goes” match between the two in which Rosa pinned Baker after hitting a “Thunder Driver” onto a table outside the ring. Moments earlier, the two were slammed into and crawled around thumbtacks. Rosa was the winner, but Baker (with her blood-soaked face) became the icon. Thunder Rosa defeated Baker for the championship at St. Patrick’s Slam, held in San Antonio, Texas, and inside a Steel Cage. The new AEW Women’s Champion was shown infrequently on television and only defended the title a few times.
It was puzzling as the former NWA Women’s champion was popular and at one time a tireless self-promoter. When AEW was in Pittsburgh, Thunder Rosa wasn’t featured in person but was shown on a video. In “Brittsburgh,” Thunder Rosa–the top babyface in the division–was heartily booed. She did make an appearance at the same Western Pennsylvania independent promotion in which Baker trained. Baker did not appear there, and Thunder Rosa defeated a local talent, for approval from the fans.
Rosa compared her rivalry with Baker to that of Stone Cold Steve Austin and The Rock. She probably di