AEW hot take: Time to pick up the pace with Thunder Rosa’s title reign

Thunder Rosa’s AEW women’s title reign still feels slow.

Thunder Rosa has recently surpassed the one hundred-day mark as AEW women’s champion. Her reign has continued after a decisive victory over Toni Storm at Forbidden Door. Even though her reign is past one hundred days, the focus is on the overall build-up.

Rosa came to AEW on fire with a lot of interest in who her next rivalry could be during her early days. The best notable rivalry she has had was against Dr. Britt Baker thus far with their famous lights-out match serving as the topper.

How did Rosa go from on fire with meaningful rivalries to being a champion with a build that feels like exhibition bouts? Hopefully, for the next part of Rosa’s reign, there will be a focus and a fix on some flaws trying to build up her rivalries and matches.

Ways Thunder Rosa’s reign can become more meaningful on AEW.

There is obviously a lot going on in AEW as of right now. There have been times when it seemed like they divide the time between the TBS champion Jade Cargill and Rosa. There are ways to rectify it so everyone wins in this situation.

The most obvious thing is that AEW management needs to set a degree of boundaries with planning. It’s not hard to imagine Rosa getting a rotating schedule to help Rampage, Dark, and Elevation in a similar way she did before she was champion.

This will call for much attention to detail from management to carefully plan and balance out storylines between Rosa and their other champions. Rosa brought eyes to other shows besides Dynamite, so having a firm program and equal storylines across the board shouldn’t be hard.

AEW has shown that they aren’t above giving storylines when they had Big Swole in a program with Diamante plus Sonny Kiss and Joey Janela. Both rivalries brought a surge to Dark and Dark Elevation since it deviated away from the typical exhibition bout format.

As mentioned before, Rosa had a memorable feud with Dr.Britt Baker, but that was before she became champion. It seemed like there is a championship fever from management where they put the title on a competitor who has great momentum, and they don’t know what to do next.

Thunder Rosa has no shortage of energy and ambitions being one of the busiest people in wrestling today. Even with a whole lot on her plate, her energy has remained the same and consistent with a dedication to bringing the women’s division to new heights.

The other factor is having the TBS champion Jade Cargill, the leader of the Baddies. She has an interesting situation that calls for focus and the spotlight on TBS as an interesting challenger in Athena is there now.

Fans noticed there have been long stretches where Rosa is not on the main flagship show of AEW Dynamite, which sharply contrasts from the time she first signed with the company. When there is a large roster and a two-hour show, it’s bound to happen no matter what.

A good system to give Rosa her moment on Rampage, which has a format perfect for short and long-term rivalries, will help make it a money match every time with maximum excitement. This way Rosa has a bit more slack to work with to build storylines up.

When Rosa was NWA women’s champion, for example, NWA only had the main show that lasted roughly an hour. During that time, they were able to tell multiple stories including a tease from her alliance with Melina coming to an end.

With all of that in mind, there are absolutely zero excuses for Rosa to not have the floor on one of the four shows that combine a little over six hours’ worth of content on a weekly basis. It should be easy to build up and prioritize Thunder Rosa for an ever-growing women’s division.

There are still a lot of dream matches lined up and waiting for a great rivalry. One dream rivalry worthy of all the potential build-up is a Thunder Rosa versus AQA. It could happen on pay-per-view with a long meaningful build or on Rampage with a few weeks to build.

All of us can only hope that AEW management will realize what they have and utilize the resources to the fullest. If they have problems utilizing the resources they currently have, then they probably have a bigger problem to address in the near future.

Rosa is the kind of wrestler to fit in any situation and utilizes it to the fullest, whether it’s an internet show or a weekly episodic television show. She has the versatility to fit in with any show and add to it in her own unique way.

There are so many ways to fix it, but ultimately it’s up to AEW to fix the situation. After that, it’s up to Thunder Rosa to use whatever solution management came up for her for the rest of her title reign to pick up steam just like when she first signed with the company.

All of us hope Thunder Rosa’s reign will be given more time to build and simmer and not built on a foundation of quick bouts. One can hope that fire that burned for Rosa prior to her becoming champion will be rekindled for the rest of her title reign on AEW programming.