Former IMPACT Knockouts World Champion Deonna Purrazzo has opened up on first joining IMPACT Wrestling after being let go from WWE, noting that she wasn’t sure if she even wanted to wrestle anymore!
Speaking with Inside The Ropes’ own Adam Morrison, ‘The Virtuosa’ discussed how she wasn’t sure if she even wanted to wrestle anymore upon being released from WWE, a mood that changed when she signed with IMPACT Wrestling:
“I think everyone wants that [to be a face of the company], I think that if you get into wrestling and you don’t want to be a face of the company, then why are you in wrestling? I think everyone wants to be the champion and wants to be the face of a company, but I don’t think when I came into IMPACT that necessarily was my goal.
I think I just was in this weird spot of, ‘Do I even want to wrestle anymore? What just even happened in my life?’ It was really just, ‘Let’s see what happens and see where this goes’, and it just went really, really well. From my first TV taping back [in] May 2020, it was like, ‘This is my home’. Everyone was so welcoming and so accommodating and so…just the environment that our locker room has cultivated is just so, so different than any locker room I had been in at that point.
I think that as time progressed and I signed a contract, and I really became a fixture of our Knockouts division and then our company, it was kind of life, ‘Wow! This is really happening! This is my life.’ I envisioned this for my life since I was nine-years-old, so that nine-year-old girl is saying, ‘Hell yeah, you did it, Dee! Good for you’.”
.@DeonnaPurrazzo caught @mashaslamovich with a beautiful Hurricanrana! #IMPACTonAXSTVpic.twitter.com/wQwI4Cq6vk
— IMPACT (@IMPACTWRESTLING) September 2, 2022
Deonna Purrazzo would continue, coming off as eternally grateful for all of the opportunities that have been provided to her since joining the Anthem-helmed promotion:
“It’s been amazing and again, that’s a dream come true. Up until this point – and it’s almost been ten years that I’ve been wrestling, the end of this year – I haven’t had the opportunities that IMPACT has afforded me. I have never been given the ball and just told, ‘Go with it and let’s see what you can do.’
So IMPACT, not just making me the Knockouts World Champion, but really making me the face of our company and offering me opportunities to go to AAA, to become the Reina de Reinas Champion, to wrestle for NWA, to wrestle for Ring Of Honor and become the Women’s Champion, go to AEW, main event Dynamite, these are really great opportunities that are so meaningful now but at the end of my career, will be career-defining for me.
So to be atop our Knockouts division but really atop our company in terms of how much they value me has been a dream come true, and something I hope I’ve handled well and put my best foot forward doing because it really does mean so much to me.”
Deonna Purrazzo has enjoyed a fruitful IMPACT career thus far, being in her first reign as Knockouts World Tag Team Champion alongside her VXT partner Chelsea Green, alongside two runs as Knockouts World Champion and a number of other accolades. She most recently wrestled Masha Slamovich in a bid to face Jordynne Grace at Bound For Glory on 7 October.
During the interview, Deonna also spoke highly of her time working alongside Mickie James, how much fun she has had teaming with Chelsea Green in IMPACT Wrestling, who she thinks deserves a spot in the IMPACT Hall of Fame, and more!
Many thanks to Deonna Purrazzo for taking the time to talk with us and to IMPACT UK for facilitating the interview – you can support IMPACT Wrestling by watching Victory Road on IMPACT Plus, IMPACT Ultimate Insiders, and Fite TV on 23 September.
If you use any quotes from this interview please provide a link back to the original source and a H/T to Adam Morrison of Inside The Ropes.