During a recent guesting on Maria Menounos’ “Heal Squad” podcast, Thunder Rosa, the previous champion of Women’s World in AEW, took a moment to look back on her brief encounter with MMA as well as her wrestling history in Japan.
Here are some noteworthy parts from the podcast:
Her 2019 MMA battle for Combate Americas – She reminisced, “My relatives, including my son, were there… all right in front row. The main thing in my mind was ‘Avoid getting knocked out and too much blood so your son doesn’t witness such event.’ That is my only thinking. They shut the door and locked it. One of my acquaintances told me, ‘The moment the door is locked, that is when you feel nearest to God.’ In all honesty, that was what I felt. You had no place to hide… no way to escape…it’s just you, your opponent, and God.”.
Her journey with STARDOM in 2015 – “On my fourth match, I experienced a severe concussion and was forced to rest for an entire month,” she recalls. “The company was undergoing changes at that moment. The previous trainer resigned and they hired someone new. They also welcomed some old-timers. It was quite a learning curve for me, being based in America and experiencing something completely different in Japan. I made a blunder during one match which ended up causing me a concussion.”