Thunder Rosa Reveals What Tony Khan Told Her After Huge AEW Match

AEW star Thunder Rosa appeared on Oral Sessions with Renee Paquette and spent a lot of time talking about arguably her most famous match — the AEW Dynamite Lights Out match against Britt Baker in March of 2021. Thunder Rosa took Paquette through the day, including how nervous she was and how conversations with her husband and AEW President Tony Khan helped get her in the right frame of mind.

"I have pictures, I have video," Rosa said. "I can literally tell you how my whole day went, the moment I got there and how I felt. I was very nervous, not for me because I was like 'eh whatever. If I get hurt, I get hurt.' My whole thing is I want to make sure my opponent was fully protected. There's a lot of stuff that I had never done before. So there's a lot of like, you question yourself and you question 'can I do this? Can I do this safely? When we go live, am I going to be nervous? Is my opponent going to be nervous?'

"I call my husband. I remember I was in the back, and I was in tears telling my husband, 'I am very nervous about this. I don't know if I'm going to pull it off.' He was like, 'just remember who you are. Where you've been and all the things that you have gone through. Just remember that you are fu**ing Thunder Rosa. You are there for a reason, they brought you here for a reason. This is your moment. Remember that.' And I remember getting ready and everything, and Tony was like, 'you're going to do great. I trust you, I believe in you.' Tony always tells me that he believes in me."

Thunder Rosa also talked about the real emotions she felt both during and after the match, and how several AEW talents were themselves moved by the work she and Baker put in. She believes the match stood out more than other matches due to the emotional connection fans had to her, Baker, and the storyline they had developed leading into it.

"By the end of the match, everyone is on their feet clapping. And I was shaking," Rosa said. "There's a moment, literally we break the table, she's completely full of blood, I'm full of her blood. And I'm telling her, 'I belong here! I belong here!' Then they raised my hand and I'm in tears. These are some real fu**ing tears. In my mind, I remember thinking 'f**k you guys! I knew this was going to be good, but I didn't think it was going to be this good. And I didn't think I was going to survive.' It was just so good. Tony hugged me and was like 'hey champ, I knew you were going to do this. Thank you so much.'

"And then he was like 'now you got to cut a promo.' And I was like 'oh f**k!' I made a couple of people cry. Ogogo, I made him cry. He was in the process with me, we became very good friends and he was training me and stuff. And Sonny Kiss, I remember he hugged me and he looked at me and said 'I remember when you and I were in Lucha Underground and how much you struggled to get respect with the people in Lucha Underground because you were so new. And look at you right now, doing a main event of this magnitude. You're going to become a legend.'

"I just remember being in tears and being so happy, for one that it was over and two, that what we did out there was going to bring women's wrestling to another level. I learned a lot from Britt, honestly, in terms of the moments and doing stuff like that. I think a lot of people won't give her credit on that, but I will give her credit on that. She's very smart about certain things, and the stuff that she picked, it was really, really good. But I think if I had been a sh**ty worker and not sold her s**t and that stuff, I don't think it would've been as good. I've seen a lot of street matches, I've seen a lot of Lights Out, deathmatches, and some of them don't have that emotional connection that we had on that match."

If you use any of the quotes in this article, please credit Oral Sessions with Renee Paquette and provide a h/t to Wrestling Inc. for the transcription

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