Thunder Rosa Thought She Would Die While Training With Cris Cyborg

AEW star Thunder Rosa has described how she thought she was going to die while training with MMA legend Cris Cyborg.

Before signing with AEW in 2021, Rosa trained for and had an MMA fight in the Mexican promotion, Combate Americas.

Speaking to Renee Paquette and Meisha Tate on their Throwing Down show, Rosa described what it was like to train with Cyborg, who is the current Bellator Women’s Featherweight Champion.

She said:

“It’s been a while since I wanted to go and train with her, but our timing is never good. This time, I was in LA because I was supposed to have interviews with agents and stuff and nothing fell through. She texted me the day before, which was Monday night, and I was trying to figure out what I was going to do on Tuesday because I was going to be there the whole day. She said, ‘You want to come to my gym?’ ‘Yes.’ We planned it last minute, I showed up on Tuesday and was like, ‘We have Muay Thai.’ Keep in mind, I haven’t trained MMA in over nine months. Ever since I got signed, I don’t even have time to breathe. I went over there and her coach is like super nice.

“Thankfully, I didn’t look like an idiot, at least I don’t think I did. We trained for about an hour, an hour and a half. Then, I was like, ‘I want to have a match with you.’ ‘What?’ Her husband was like, ‘Yeah, let’s have a match.’ We had a really cool match, like a three-minute match. I was like, ‘You’re going to catch me on a crossbody.’ Her husband was like, ‘Are you crazy?’ I jumped from the cage onto her, she catches me in a really weird way, she rolls back over, grabs me again, and we did this spot maybe like ten times because it was so much fun. ‘What am I thinking?’ I forget that not everybody is a pro wrestler. We were talking wrestling jargon and I was like, ‘You have to sell.’ ‘Sell?’ Just seeing her train live, I was in awe.

“There have been two times I’ve been afraid. One, the first time I stepped in a cage when they jumped me for me to figure out what MMA was all about and when she was like ‘you wanna train today?’ I was like, ‘I’m going to die.’ We like sparred too. That was really cool. [MMA fighters] are so in control when they spar with people, especially new people. You’re not going to eat their lunch because yu want them to learn something and see how they move.”

Rosa is currently one of AEW’s top stars, and most recently lost in AEW’s TBS Championship tournament to eventual winner Jade Cargill.

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• MMA
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