Thunder Rosa Talks About What AEW Champ Swerve Strickland Means For Representation

On "Busted Open Radio", Thunder Rosa joined the show and spoke about Swerve Strickland's AEW Championship win at Dynasty. Rosa shared her admiration for the presentation that Strickland had been given leading up to his title win, and explained how important representation is in wrestling, which is what made Swerve's title win so special to her.

"A lot of my friends are African Americans and for him being the first African American champion in AEW, it meant a lot ... I'm going to focus on representation, for me as a Mexican American, Mexican-born wrestler, representation is everything and what Swerve did on Sunday, coming with the whole Wakanda gear and everything, 'Black Panther,' that means a lot. A lot of people they feel represented by Swerve, like what he brings, the swag, the hustle." Rosa also shared which AEW star put over Strickland at the post-Dynasty dinner once he had defeated Samoa Joe for the title, and mentioned that Swerve deserves to be in the spot that he's in today because of the effort he's put in.

"Jericho put him over really big at his dinner after he won the championship, like Swerve has worked his ass off to be where he's at and I'm not only talking about in the ring but outside of the ring. Like I remember when he first started his music career and he used to send me his stuff on Spotify ... he's been doing everything along with wrestling and now everything is just like blossoming, so he's going to be busy, he's trying to do something different too and I'm very happy for him."  The opponent for Strickland's first pay-per-view title defense will be announced Wednesday on "AEW Dynamite," and will challenge for the gold on May 26 at Double or Nothing.

If you use any of the quotes in this article, please credit "Busted Open Radio" with a h/t to Wrestling Inc. for the transcription.