AEW star Thunder Rosa recently appeared on The Cruz Show on REAL 92.3 LA, where she discussed a variety of topics. One notable point she mentioned was that WWE offered her a full-time referee position in 2019, which came with an annual salary of around $60,000. At that time, Rosa was working independently across multiple promotions and managing an unpredictable schedule.
Rosa said, “In 2019, (WWE) called me and they were like, ‘Are you ready to hang up the boots?’ I was like, ‘Well, you know, I need money.’ So I was like, ‘I need steady money’ because, brother, being an independent professional wrestler is, when you’re talking about hustle, it’s a hustle. I had a job when I was in the Bay Area, but when I decided to do wrestling full-time, I was depending on my ex-husband and my hustle. I was hustling all the time and I was tired. Like hustling after seven years, you’re like, man, I need a job or something.”
On how a hurricane disrupted scheduled tryouts and that contributed to the opportunity not moving forward:
“And (WWE) offered me like $60,000 a year, which at the time it was like, ‘All right, it’s better than what I was making.’ There was a hurricane that happened and then they just kept pushing my tryout and then, it never happened. But it was meant to be that way and that’s when I made the decision to jump into MMA, because they offered me a $3,000 contract.”
(H/T to F4WOnline.com for transcribing the above quotes)
