Thunder Rosa Struggled With Suicidal Thoughts During AEW Absence

Thunder Rosa admitted that her lengthy absence in 2023 broke her spirit.

In August 2022, Thunder Rosa was forced to step away from the ring due to a long-standing back injury that was getting increasingly worse. Although the details of the injury were largely kept secret, Rosa didn’t return to action until December 2023 and the absence was tumultuous, to say the least.

Rosa was forced to deny that she was faking her injury and the fact she wasn’t stripped of the title for months created friction backstage. By this point, it was also something of an open secret that Thunder Rosa and Britt Baker couldn’t stand each other. It was also believed that Rosa had heat with Jamie Hayter.

This was on top of social media media often being less than kind to the star.

Thunder Rosa Reflects On Mental Health Struggles

During an appearance on the AEW Unrestricted podcast, Rosa opened up about this period of her career, describing it as “mentally very rough.” She went on to recall having suicidal thoughts because she felt everyone had turned on her.

“I spoke about this very openly. I had suicidal thoughts for a long time, because, again, with all the layers that it had, not only like it was the injury, it was like, I feel certain people didn’t give me the chance, and some of the fans just turned on me.

The comments that they were making, they were awful, like, ‘Go kill yourself. You don’t want to put people over.’ It hurt so bad that at times I couldn’t deal with it. I just couldn’t. I wanted to defend this title. I wanted to give my best, but I physically couldn’t do it.

It just ate me, but I utilized the resources. I got physically stronger. I stopped having pain, which allowed me to exercise, to allow me to get back in the ring. So little by little, I started gaining my confidence back. The injury really broke my spirit and everything that came with the injury, but I fought through it.”

In the months before getting back in the ring, Rosa returned to work with AEW at the Spanish commentary desk. The former Women’s Champion explained that she felt lucky to have a strong support system around her, but this period of her comeback brought its own struggles.

“I have a very strong team that was with me, my publicist, my manager, my son, even my former partner, too. They were there for me. A lot of my very, very close friends helped me tremendously.

At the time, I had a really good therapist who helped me with a lot of the issues that I was dealing with. Alvaro and Alex Abrahantes, they were like my brothers. They really held my hand in the hardest moments of my career. They really held my hand in the hardest moments of my career.

It made me want to cry when I was on commentary. There were times when I was doing commentary and I was having panic attacks because it was just so hard that I couldn’t be in the ring.”

After returning to action, Rosa went on to challenge Toni Storm for the Women’s World Title at Dynasty, although she was unsuccessful. Since then the star has been a regular on Collision, either side of a short absence after suffering a concussion.

H/t to WrestlingNews.Co