Following an in-ring absence of over six months, the former AEW Women's World Champion returned on Dynamite last week before making her in-ring comeback against Julia Hart. On Saturday, Feb. 21, 2026, Rosa defeated Hart in her comeback bout.
However, shortly after the return, she opened up on social media and strongly reacted to a ‘hateful message' she had received. Without going into details of the message, Rosa claimed that the message was targeted toward her identity.
“I want to address something real. I received a hateful message that doesn’t critique my work, but it really attacks who I am and where I came from. I’m not going to repeat it, I’m not going to give this guy more oxygen. I will say this: in the United States right now, a lot of people are being treated like suspects. Not because of what they’ve done, but because of their names, their accents, or the place that they came from,” Rosa said. “That is not strength, that is fear dressed up as power. I am Thunder Rosa, and yes, I’m proud to be Mexican, and yes, I’m proud to be from Tijuana.”
AEW's Thunder Rosa takes a strong stand against hateful messages
Thunder Rosa's recent comments on her cultural background and identity as a Mexican made more sense after an independent wrestler in Florida was recently detained by ICE. Continuing her statements, Rosa emphasized her dedication, sacrifices, and love for wrestling. While she was open to criticism of her wrestling, she was not open to “dehumanizing people.”
“Debate is part of it, but dehumanizing people, threatening them, turning into immigration into a punchline, that’s not fandom, that’s hate. So here’s my message to the locker room, to the audience, and to everyone listening. We can keep wrestling tough without being cruel. We can be loud without being dangerous, and we can protect this community by refusing to normalize intimidation.”
Rosa, 39, has been in the industry for several years now and is a former women's World Champion, currently looking to begin a title feud with Thekla.
