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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 endless.
Rosa, whose real name is Melissa Cervantes, currently performs for All Elite Wrestling (AEW) and Consejo Mundial de Lucha Libre (CMLL), two of North America’s top promotions. But while most professional wrestlers began their path to the ring in 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 be a wrestler after going to a wrestling show and attending a couple of shows there and feeling like that was the next step to take,” she told Pak Gazette Digital in a recent interview. “I feel like the call was: it was going to be a bigger platform. I just decided to go and try out and after doing it, I fell in love with professional wrestling.”
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Thunder Rosa battles Deonna Purrazzo during 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 never played much sport in her life.
“It’s everything. It’s all the details, all the different things that the sport entails, which is, you know, the theatrics, the athletic level of track and field,” he said. “It’s just the fact that you can travel with it and also because it’s very challenging. It was going to be a big challenge for me physically because I never played sports and I felt like I could do it at the time.”
Rosa said she had to start from scratch, “learning how to roll, learning how to exercise, learning how to develop my body, learning how to control my body, a lot of things like gymnastics, basics of a lot of different sports and I think I had to really achieve it and then be really realistic with myself.” She said she needed to work harder than anyone else in her training classes because most of the time she was the only woman in the class, if not the room.
He said there was never a moment where he could pinpoint where he knew taking a chance in professional wrestling was the right move. It wasn’t until he realized he didn’t have time to go to work, his day job, that he thought he could make a career out of wrestling.
“There really isn’t a moment because I feel like when you’re getting and winning things sometimes you feel like you have imposter syndrome and no matter what you’ve done, it’s just not enough, right?” Rosa told Pak Gazette Digital: “I feel like even when great opportunities came up I thought, ‘Oh, I’m so lucky this happened to me’. No, I wasn’t, I wasn’t lucky. “It’s just that people saw that I had the skills and the talent and the IT factor and they gave me a chance.
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Thunder Rosa battles Deonna Purrazzo during 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 click with more opportunities in pro wrestling that’s when I thought, ‘Okay, I think I can quit my full-time job and become a pro wrestler.’ I think it was my first contract with Lucha Underground that I realized I didn’t have enough time to go to work. That was the moment where it was time to move on to the next chapter of my life and my career. So that’s when I thought, ‘Okay, I think I can do this.’ I think it’s doable. It goes. It’s going to be difficult, but it’s doable.'”
Rosa joined AEW in 2020 and began defending the National Wrestling Alliance Women’s Championship on “Dynamite.” Lost the title to Serena Deeb. She would take gold in the AEW Women’s World Championship for the first time when she defeated Britt Baker in a cage match.
She was the fifth woman to hold the title. However, he had to leave due to a back injury.
Rosa told Pak Gazette Digital that she was proud to help women’s wrestling grow.
“It’s been really beautiful to see the journey that a lot of us have taken over the last six years here at AEW or even seven because we’ve seen something small grow to the point where we’ve had shows that have had 80,000 people,” he said. “The way that we or I were able to help the women’s division and grow and provide a bigger platform with opportunities that have a lot at stake. I take that with a lot of pride. A lot of things happened and in 2021-2022 that really broke a lot of barriers for a lot of the women that are now in the women’s division and they have all done a tremendous job to continue to open more doors for everyone who will come in the future.
“It’s also been incredibly interesting to see how different companies have worked together and are now symbiotic with each other. They exist and subsist with each other’s collaboration 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 this culture of professional wrestling has subsisted within this niche, but I feel like it’s getting bigger and bigger, so it’s been very interesting to see how AEW has been fundamental to those things.”
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 promised to continue using her voice to defend women and children, something she stressed was very important to her. He also said that he has his eyes focused on the last part of the year with the Mexico Grand Slam.
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“I have a lot of things planned. I continue to work very 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 little children because I think it’s something very, very important and to advocate for my community. I continue to focus on the opportunities that I have in front of me,” she said.
“Right now, we’re going to focus, like a laser, on the Grand Slam in Mexico City. Then some big things will happen in September, October during the Day of the Dead and all that. There are a lot of opportunities to come during that time. So, I’m taking everything day by day and of course I want the gold, but that’s not up to me. I’ll have to keep working harder and keep knocking on doors. Even when I lose, I always win. And the last thing Forbidden Door, we had a tremendous match with Divine Dominion and with Olympia. We always leave something for the fans to remember. Again, I will continue to work very hard to hopefully have the gold in the future, but if not, I will enjoy the journey anyway.
