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Thunder Rosa is one of the best professional wrestlers in the world, but the journey to reach the top of the mountain is never-ending.
Rosa, real name Melissa Cervantes, currently performs for All Elite Wrestling (AEW) and Consejo Mundial de Lucha Libre (CMLL) – two of the major promotions in North America. But while most professional wrestlers began their path to the ring at a school, Rosa was a social worker before wrestling caught her attention.
“I became a professional wrestler 13 years ago after making the decision to stop being an activist. I was a social worker, so one day I decided I wanted to become a wrestler after going to a wrestling show and seeing a few of the shows there and feeling like that was the next step to take,” she told PK Press Club Digital in a recent interview. “I feel like the call was like – it was going to be a bigger platform. I just decided to go give it a try and after I gave it a tryout, I fell in love with professional wrestling.”
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Thunder Rosa battles Deonna Purrazzo in AEW Collision on June 15, 2024, at the Covelli Center in Youngstown, Ohio. (Frank Jansky/Icon Sportswire via Getty Images)
Rosa said the aura of professional wrestling is what got her hooked in the first place. Everything from theater to sports.
She said she was up for the challenge even though she had never done much sport in her life.
“It’s everything. It’s all the details, all the different things that sports involves, which is, you know, the theater, the athletic level of track and field,” she said. “It’s like being able to travel with it and also because it’s very difficult. It was going to be very difficult for me physically because I’ve never done sports like that and I just felt like I could do it at the time.”
Rosa said she had to start from scratch, “learn to ride, learn to exercise, learn how to build my body, learn body control, a lot of gymnastics, the basics of a lot of different sports and I think I just had to like really pull myself together and then be really realistic with myself.” She said she had to work harder than anyone else in her training classes because most of the time she was the only woman in the class, or even in the room.
She said she could never point to a moment when she knew taking a chance on professional wrestling was the right decision. It wasn’t until she noticed she didn’t have time to go to work that she thought she could make a career out of wrestling.
“There’s not really a moment because I feel like when you get and win things, sometimes you feel like you have imposter syndrome and no matter what you’ve done, it’s just not enough, right?” Rosa told PK Press Club Digital “I feel like even when big opportunities presented themselves, it was like, ‘Oh, I’m so lucky that this happened to me.’ No, I wasn’t lucky. It’s just that people saw that I had the skills, the talent and the IT factor and they gave me an opportunity.
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Thunder Rosa battles Deonna Purrazzo in AEW Collision on June 15, 2024, at the Covelli Center in Youngstown, Ohio. (Frank Jansky/Icon Sportswire via Getty Images)
“I feel like once things started to evolve with bigger opportunities in professional wrestling, that’s when I was like, ‘OK, I think I can quit my full-time job and become a professional wrestler.’ I think it was my first contract with Lucha Underground when I noticed that I didn’t have enough time to go to work. of my career. That’s when I said to myself, ‘OK, I think I can do this. I think it’s going to be hard, but it’s doable.'”
Rosa joined AEW in 2020 and began defending the National Wrestling Alliance Women’s Championship on “Dynamite.” She lost the title to Serena Deeb. She would win AEW Women’s World Championship gold for the first time by defeating Britt Baker in a cage match.
She was the fifth woman to hold this title. However, she had to give it up due to a back injury.
Rosa told PK Press Club Digital that she is proud to help women’s wrestling grow.
“It’s been really beautiful to see the journey that a lot of us have been on over the last six years here at AEW, even seven, because we’ve seen something small become so big to the point where we’ve had shows that have 80,000 people in attendance,” she said. “The way that we or I have been able to help the women’s division and grow and given it a bigger platform with opportunities that have a lot at stake. I take that with a lot of pride. A lot of things have happened and in 2021-2022 it’s really broken down a lot of barriers for a lot of women that are now in the women’s division and they’ve all done a tremendous job to continue to open more doors for everyone that comes in the future.
“It’s also been incredibly interesting to see how different companies have worked together and now they’re symbiotic with each other. They exist and subsist on the collaboration of others and that, I think, has changed the landscape of professional wrestling forever because we don’t live on an island. I feel like this subculture or culture of professional wrestling has subsisted in this niche but I think it’s getting bigger and bigger, so it’s been very interesting to see how AEW played a pivotal role in this stuff.”
Melissa Cervantes, known as “Thunder Rosa,” dressed as Catrina in honor of the San Diego Padres City Connect debut, smiles during their game against the Colorado Rockies at Petco Park on Friday, April 10, 2026 in San Diego, California. (Meg McLaughlin/The San Diego Union-Tribune via Getty Images)
Rosa pledged to continue using her voice to advocate for women and children, which she said was very important to her. She also said she has her eyes set on ending the year with the Grand Slam Mexico.
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“I have a lot planned. I continue to work extremely hard every day to be better at my craft. I continue to work very, very, very hard outside of professional wrestling to advocate for women and young children because I think that’s something very, very important and to advocate for my community. I continue to focus on the opportunities that are available to me,” she said.
“Right now, we’re going to focus, like a laser focus, on the Grand Slam in Mexico. Then there’s going to be big things happening in September, October during Dia de Los Muertos and all that. There’s going to be a lot of opportunities coming during that time. So, I’m taking everything day by day and, of course, I want the gold, but it’s not my fault. I’m just going to have to keep working harder and keep knocking on doors. Even when I lose, I always win. And the last Forbidden Door we had a great match with Divine Dominion and Olympia We always leave something for the fans to remember. Again, I will continue to work extremely hard to hopefully win gold in the future, but otherwise I will enjoy the journey just as much.
