Impact Wrestling star Rosita joined us this week on DD360 to discuss her incredible year since joining the company in January. Rosita fulfilled a lifelong dream of becoming a wrestling star in 2011, positively marking the 10th anniversary of her father’s tragic passing during the 9/11 terror attacks. As fans will know, Rosita’s father, an amateur wrestler himself, inspired Rosita to become a wrestler. Her inspiring story earned her the Pro Wrestling Illustrated award for Inspiring Wrestler of the Year, as announced by Dixie Carter this week.
Highlights from the interview below. You can listen here:
On her rookie year in Impact Wrestling: “It’s been a crazy journey so far. I look back a couple of years ago, and seeing where I am now, there’s no way I thought I’d be where I am right now.”
“It’s truly amazing to see where determination and drive will lead you. From people telling me, ‘Oh no, you’re too small’ and ‘You can’t do those things that everyone else can do because you’re so small’, and you put those people to rest saying, ‘I can do this no matter what’. I had Tommy Dreamer, who’s amazing to me, from the very first day I met him — he actually was the one to say to me, ‘I believe in you, I know that you can do this. Let’s see what you can do at TNA’. Everybody at TNA has been amazing to me too, so I’ve been truly blessed on this whole [journey].”
On winning PWI’s Inspirational Wrestler of the Year award: “I remember when I was first presented the award, I was amazed. Usually when I’m shocked, I’m like, ‘Oh, my God’ — I just lose my breath and I [get] lost for words. I just looked at it like, ‘Oh, my God, this is amazing’.”
“I just remember bringing it home to my mom and she just started crying. She couldn’t even believe that her daughter — her crazy little daughter [Laughs] — actually touched the lives of other people to say that I’m an inspiration. It was an absolute honor.”
The screen time & opportunities afforded to the Knockouts division: “I think it’s super important [to have the screen time and opportunities the Knockouts receive]. Back to what I was saying about Hardcore Justice, I mean, despite the fact that myself and Sarita lost against [Brooke] Tessmacher and Tara, that was one of my favorite matches and that match alone was a good 10 minutes. When was the last time you really got a [Divas] match that’s over two minutes in WWE?”
“I’m just glad that we are given that time to show everybody who we are and show everybody what we have. And everybody is so different — you can look at Sarita and know that [there is] no comparison to Velvet Sky or Angelina Love. Everybody has their own certain characters. Everybody has something that they bring to the table.”
“I think it’s great that we get so much airtime to show that, and if you look, sometimes there’s more than one Knockouts match. You’re lucky if you get one Divas match in WWE.”
On her on-screen cousin Sarita overcoming the difficult year she’s had with facial paralysis & a nasty fall in Mexico: “From the moment I met Sarita, you can see that she is just, from top to bottom, inside and out, tough. She’s very tough. She’s very sincere, and she’s very sweet, but she’s tough as nails. No matter what, she will always get up from a fall. She didn’t let facial paralysis stop her from performing. She didn’t let that fall [in Mexico] stop her from coming back to the Impact Zone and doing what she does best and I couldn’t be more proud of her because there’s just some things, people are like, ‘Okay, I’m not going to go wrestle anymore after that’ or ‘Not my face, no’, but she’s not afraid of anything. It’s crazy. That’s another reason I look up to her.”