Thunder Rosa believes women in professional wrestling are still fighting some of the same battles they’ve been dealing with for years. For Rosa, progress has happened, but that doesn’t mean the playing field is suddenly equal.
During her appearance on the I Love Wrestling Podcast, Rosa was asked about the biggest challenges women continue to face in the industry. She immediately knew she was stepping into dangerous territory and joked about how loaded the question was.
“Why are you asking me this question, man? That’s a very loaded question that can get me in trouble.”
Rosa then pointed directly at pay inequality, expanding the issue beyond professional wrestling to female athletes in general. She said it’s frustrating that women are still having to fight for equitable pay in 2026.
“Well, one of the things, and this is not only for women wrestlers, but I’m just seeing it in female athletes in general, it is very unfortunate that I feel that there is not an equality of pay for a lot of many different athletes, and that’s still—and it’s 2026 and we’re still fighting for what is right.”
Money isn’t the only problem Rosa sees. She also believes opportunities can still depend heavily on where someone sits within the industry’s hierarchy, even if some aspects have improved over the years.
“And then, I mean, you can talk about so many other things. You can talk about the lack of opportunities at times depending on where you’re coming from and the totem pole, right? The hierarchies. Certain things have changed, but certain things haven’t changed.”
Rosa knows that struggle personally. As a Mexican-born wrestler, she said one of her challenges was convincing promoters to see her as a professional wrestler rather than automatically putting her into a stereotypical luchadora box because of her background.
“But I feel that many of us have paved the way or have fought really hard for equality for anyone, right? And I feel that I was very outspoken at the time that I was coming into the business and just talked about how it was difficult for me as a Latina to have an opportunity to work in bigger arenas without me being put in this cookie-cutter place where it’s like, ‘Oh, she’s Mexican and she’s lucha.’
“Like, I am Mexican, but I wasn’t lucha. I was a professional wrestler. And making people see me as that, it’s very hard. There’s been so many obstacles and things that I’ve seen and things that I have experienced.”
Despite those experiences, Rosa does see genuine progress. She believes previous generations of women helped force institutional changes that are now allowing wrestlers from different backgrounds to get opportunities because of what they can actually do rather than simply how promoters want to categorize them.
“But right now, I see it more as we were able to make some institutional changes, and now women from many different backgrounds are being able to be in the spotlight, not only because of what they represent, but also because of the talent that they have, and they have that opportunity to become who they want to become.”
Rosa’s point wasn’t that nothing has changed. It was that the work isn’t finished, and she wants the next generation of women to have the freedom to define themselves instead of having the industry do it for them.
Do you agree with Thunder Rosa’s assessment of the biggest challenges still facing women in professional wrestling? Let us know what you think in the comments.
This transcript was produced exclusively for Ringside News from the original recording. Republishing the transcription in full is prohibited. When using excerpts, provide prominent credit and a link to this article.
