Thunder Rosa explains the meaning behind her trademark look.
Thunder Rosa (Melissa Cervantes) recently spoke with Inside DFW’s Yolonda Williams CW33 to promote All Elite Wrestling’s Dynamite taping on May 18. The current AEW Women’s Champion was asked about her influences in the business, and Thunder Rosa shared how “Sensational” Sherri Martel made an impact on her.
“Actually, I did. When I first started in wrestling I was a manager and I listened to Sherri Martel. She used to paint her face and she was really great. She was a manager for different people, she was a manager for Shawn Michaels, and she was crazy. I loved her hair, I loved how she pumped everybody up,” Thunder Rosa explained, “and I remember thinking ‘If I’m going to be a ‘heel’ manager, I’m going to be like her.’ And I was just like that.”
Thunder Rosa went on to speak about the meaning behind her current look, and how it tied into a deeper meaning for her personally.
“The ‘Dia de los Muertos’ makeup was given to me by Lance Cardoza, from Lucha Xtreme. He believed this would be a way for me to connect with the fans, the Latino fans, and this was in a moment where I was rejecting my culture, which was really interesting,” she pointed out. “I only used it when I was in Mercedes, California, and then I noticed that when I went to Japan, myself [wrestling] as Melissa, I wasn’t able to transcend and get over with the fans.
“Something really interesting happened and I had a concussion and I wasn’t able to perform for over a month. My husband suggested that I should put [the makeup] on and maybe that’s going to help me a little bit. So it was just like a presentation where I could have died, but I’m not, so I’m half-dead, half-alive — to finish the story, my uncle told me when I met him and he saw me wrestle for the first time in 32 years, he’s never seen wrestling for 32 years,” she explained. “He said that my grandfather died watching a wrestling show, he [my uncle] was 8 years old and he was on his lap. He told me that my whole entire life, I was destined to be a wrestler.”
Thunder Rosa will defend her AEW Women’s World Championship against Serena Deeb at Double Or Nothing on May 29 in Las Vegas.
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