Over the last several months, Thunder Rosa has been making a name for herself in the wrestling world both as a performer and owner of Mission Pro Wrestling.
Rosa recently revamped the company in July in the wake of the #SpeakingOut movement. Speaking with Women’s Wrestling Talk she discusses the promotion’s new direction, plus the differences she hopes to make in the industry.
Rosa on revamping Mission Pro Wrestling to a women’s promotion:
“We believe in empowering people that have been neglected. And again, the whole reason why Mission Pro was revamped is because of the Speak[ing] Out movement. And I think we’re making waves, and people are like — I have so many interviews, like Texas Monthly is about to do an interview about this, and I talk extensively about the sexual harassment I went through.
Without saying names of course, because I don’t go that way. But, I expressed many times how I felt when I was being brought up in the business and someone would be grabbing or saying stuff to me until the point where I had to speak out and said, ‘You need to stop touching me’ in front of everybody.
“Yesterday I was wrestling an 18 year-old, and I was like, ‘Have you ever been sexually harassed?’ And she’s like, ‘No, not really.’ And I was like, ‘Has somebody slid into your DMs and said something inappropriate?’ She said, “Yeah.’
I said, ‘Well, that’s sexual harassment too.’ It’s like, educating our girls, our really young girls, it’s very important. And having another woman feeling validated, that that’s not okay and they can speak out and say something, it is very important. So I’m glad that people are listening, and we are little by little changing things that need to be changed.”
On wanting to make changes in the industry:
“I just want to make a difference. I mean, Sarah you can speak for me too, like we’ve seen some s**t in some of the places we have worked. And the whole, putting people down and feeling like you can’t talk because you will be blackballed?
That really has been eating me for years. And, now that I’m in that place where I can make a change in a positive way? I’m ready, I’m ready to bring those who are ready to be with me and work with me to get to the next level and treat each other with respect and create another environment.
Where we thrive by helping each other, we thrive by getting better matches, we thrive by getting paid better, almost as equal as the male stars. Because it’s time for us to do that.
“I mean, I can not tell you how many times when I went to Japan, some of my friends who were working in New Japan, they had racks of thousands of dollars. And they are like, ‘How much are you getting paid?’
And I’m like, ‘I’m getting paid $200 per match. That’s it’. So it’s like, there is such a discrepancy between men and females on the pay, it’s ridiculous.
So, I think that like I said, the more we educate ourselves and that we make people understand that women are a draw and that we deserved to be paid equally, things are going to happen. And it’s a humongous task, but that’s what drives me.”
