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Update regarding Thunder Rosa’s AEW status and reports of backstage heat

Aaron Rift

As previously noted, AEW women’s champion Thunder Rosa was pulled from the 2022 AEW All Out PPV due to injury and there have been reports of her having backstage heat.

Dave Meltzer of F4WOnline.com noted that “one of the issues is a lot of people in wrestling think she’s not hurt although we are told the back injury is legit and she stopped wrestling because of the fear she would need surgery if she kept going.” It appears that people are suspicious because Rosa announced her injury shortly after she was informed that she would be dropping her title to Toni Storm at All Out. The scenario was compared to Shawn Michaels forfeiting the WWE title in 1997 due to an “injury” when there were plans for Michaels to put over Bret Hart at Wrestlemania 13.

Meltzer also wrote the following…

“There was a lot of division among many of the women and Rosa, basically the ones who made public comments that insinuated her injury wasn’t that bad or those who privately felt due to the timing of her saying her injury was serious and she’d need time off after being told she was dropping the title to Toni Storm.”

Meltzer added that the idea is for Rosa to return in two to three months for a unification match against the interim champion Storm. During the media scrum after All Out, Storm said “when she says she’s not injured, she can come back and lose to me.”

There was a claim made by podcaster Brad Shepard that Rosa asked for her AEW release. However, multiple people including Bryan Alvarez of F4WOnline.com and Sean Ross Sapp of Fightful.com debunked Shepard’s claim.