AEW: Thunder Rosa on Dealing with Serious Mental Struggles During Back Injury Recovery, Ricochet on AEW’s Continental Classic, Orange Cassidy on Locker Room Morale Being “Incredible”

Thunder Rosa Comments on Dealing with Serious Mental Struggles During Back Injury Recovery

A recent episode of the AEW Unrestricted podcast featured Thunder Rosa as the guest. One of the topics discussed included Rosa’s thoughts about how she dealt with serious mental struggles, including suicidal thoughts, during her lengthy recovery from her back injury in 2022.

“That was probably the worst year of my life, period, especially physically, mentally. Just imagine, you can run, you can jump, and they just cut your legs, you can’t do that. Had to learn how to walk, had to learn how to run again, had to learn how to do a bunch of stuff again. I’m going to the extreme, but this is how it feels, when they take something that you identify yourself with for so long, and they just take it away, and they’re like, ‘No, you can’t have it, you gotta to earn it again.’ So it was very rough, and it was very mentally rough. I spoke about this very openly, I had suicidal thoughts for a long time because with all the layers I had, not only the injury, it was like, I don’t feel like, certain people didn’t give me the chance, and some of the fans just turned on me, and the comments they were making, they were awful, awful. Like, ‘Go kill yourself. You don’t want to put the 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, which allowed me to get back in the ring, so little by little, I started gaining my confidence back, and I think that was the one thing, I allowed people to take my confidence away from me. So this injury really broke my spirit, and everything that came with the injury, but I fought through it, I have a very strong team that was with me. They were there for me, and a lot of my very close friends, they 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 because it wasn’t only, ‘I want to get back.’ It was all this ideas and things. They broke how Thunder Rosa was. I had control of everything, and everything just fell apart, and I had control of nothing. So I had to let it roll and let it happen. When I was [doing] commentary, there was times I was having panic attacks because it was just so hard that I couldn’t be in the ring. It was hard, but I endured. I was like, ‘Fuck it, I’m gonna come stronger and nothing is gonna faze me anymore.’ Commentary helped me so much to really see professional wrestling in a different way, and also broadcasting, that gave me the strength and a voice. Ever since then, it’s just been. I enjoy, and I am blessed every time I step in the ring because I never know when this is gonna be taken away. It’s a blessing.”

Transcript h/t: Fightful.com

---

Ricochet Comments on AEW’s Continental Classic & Participating in This Year’s Tournament

CHGO Sports held a recent interview with Ricochet. One of the topics discussed included Ricochet’s thoughts about AEW’s Continental Classic tournament and getting to be part of this year’s tournament.

“It’s funny because even just with my matches in general, maybe even Ospreay’s matches in general, it’s like people either really, really like them, or they hate them [laughs]. There’s no, ‘It was okay.’ It’s either, ‘That was awesome,’ or, ‘That sucked.’ But I think that’s awesome, I love that. But the Continental Classic, I think we have a lot of possibilities in this, and it’s really kind of uncertain because in our league, the Gold League, you have so many guys who stand out, and then in the Blue League, you have so many guys who can also stand out. I think it’s gonna be exciting, man. The Continental Classic was another thing that I wanted to be a part of, coming to AEW, from seeing it last year, and everybody knows, Ricochet’s pretty good at tournaments, I’m pretty good at tournaments, so this is just another tournament, along with Battle of Los Angeles, Best of Super Junior, Dragon Gate’s King of Gate, I could just keep going on tournaments that I’ve won. So this is just gonna be another achievement on the long list of achievements that Ricochet has.”

Transcript h/t: Fightful.com

---

Orange Cassidy Comments on “AEW Locker Room Is Incredible, It Has Never Faltered”

A recent episode of Sportskeeda’s WrestleBinge podcast featured Orange Cassidy as the guest. One of the topics discussed included Cassidy’s thoughts about the current morale within AEW’s locker room being incredible.

“I don’t like to read the gossip and go online and see the discourse most of the time because it’s a very negative space. It’s very hard to find positive criticism from those areas. But sometimes you hear about, ‘Oh, the locker room’s in disarray.’ The locker room in AEW is incredible. It’s one of the best I’ve been a part of, and it has never faltered. Whatever you’re hearing is just a very isolated incident. [The internet], they just take that one thing and run with it because nothing else really happens. Everybody changes together in the same small room, I promise you, and I think what we’re trying to cultivate in AEW is a place where if you are an AEW roster member and we all work together to make everybody better. We’re trying to make that a thing where it’s not, ‘I need to step on this person so I can get higher up on the ladder.’ It’s, ‘We’re gonna help each other up the ladder.”

Transcript h/t: Fightful.com