Thunder Rosa Comments On How She Handled Telling AEW Doctor About Her Injury

AEW Women's World Champion Thunder Rosa is currently out of action as she takes time off to heal from an injury. It's a problem Rosa has worked through for quite awhile, and as she explained on the "Athletic and the Arts" podcast, a lot of that has to do with the pressure she puts on herself to be great.

"We don't sleep," Rosa said. "Sometimes I go days with three, four hours of sleep. I own my own promotion outside of AEW, an all women's promotion, and I was running three shows a month sometimes ... I was overseeing the women that are wrestlers, and I was training other women too. So it was very grueling, and it was a lot of sacrifice."

While discussing the injury, Rosa detailed just how long she'd been working hobbled.

"Before I won my championship, I was hurt for the longest," she said. "One time, even doc was like 'You need to be taped if you're going into the ring.' I couldn't feel my legs when I got out of the ring. But I have to get out there. I couldn't let people down. So I wrestled with my hips taped for about two months, because I was wrestling all the time. So it was like, nonstop because of that drive that we have. I wanted to be the champion. I wanted to be the best. I wanted people to say that I did it, I wanted to say that I did it for myself."

"I had the chance to become a professional athlete," Rosa said. "Even when I was younger, that's what I wanted to be. I've done MMA, I've had an MMA match. I jumped in, I trained for six months and I went and did it. Even during the trainings, I was wrestling and doing MMA at the same time. And I was battling stuff because of the over training I was doing, because I had to put money on my table, and I hate to wrestle because it's my job. It was very tough.

"And now on the stage that I'm in, I've got to manage not eating right, not working out the way I want to work out, because I've been on the road. The last few months I've been home two times in the last few months? I'm a mother, I have to take care of my kid, I have to take care of my business. And I have to be a champion. I've got to balance things out. Honestly, having the support that we have, it feels great. When you're on the independent scene, if you're hurt, you're hurt. Here, I felt bad one time, because I had an injury in my elbow, and I didn't tell doc for six weeks."

If you use any of the quotes in this article, please credit Athletes and the Arts and provide a h/t to Wrestling Inc. for the transcription.