Impact Wrestling Knockouts Champion Deonna Purrazzo recently spoke with Spencer Love of Love Wrestling. The video can be seen below, and the show also provided highlights. Purrazzo was asked if her current run with Impact has gone as she’d expected, and if things have differed from how she thought they would go to this point.
“A little bit of both, I guess,” she said. “I think – I didn’t really have any expectations. You know, when I got fired, it was kind of like, ‘okay, what’s the next step,’ and Impact was knocking right away, like, ‘hey, we want you here. What can we do to make this work?’ I’m just so fortunate that they were like, ‘we want to put you at the top right away.’ I think people assume that when you leave WWE or you leave another company, it’s just like you have a list of demands. ‘I want this, and I want this, and I want to right this wrong,’ like, I was just like, ‘I’m cool to do whatever! And if you’re positive that I can fulfill your expectations, then let’s do it and I’ll give it a try.’
“Impact has just been so gracious with the trust that they put in me, and I’ve been able to, I think, knock it out of the park every time.”
It was confirmed back in October that Purrazzo had finally inked a contract with Impact, after returning to the company in June following her WWE NXT release that April. She talked about finally committing to a contract again.
“Well, I think that, for me, especially like the last – even before WWE and NXT, like, I was contracting a Ring of Honor – and then I left Ring of Honor and I went right to NXT, and there was no breathing room in between that,” she said. “Now, I just think for me, it was I’ve signed two contracts. I wasn’t ready for what came with those things. I wasn’t necessarily happy with both of those contracts and the way my time had panned out. So, let’s take a step back and let’s kind of take a breather and see what happens and, you know, see, the way that creative sees me and the roles that I’m going to be put in and kind of feel this process out a little bit more now that I have some time. More than just personally, I mean, we’re still in the midst of a global pandemic, and I think that it’s not just a hesitation on my part.
“It’s also a hesitation on theirs. Like, ‘where’s our company stand? Where do we see this person? Are we going to invest in this person in the long term?’ I don’t know why it’s maybe taken this long, but I think if I had to surmise why, it’s just like a mutual understanding of, like, ‘let’s see and wait,’ and then the world’s crazy. So let’s see and wait (for) what 2021 brings us, you know?”
Finally, Purrazzo was asked if she is a fan of the “Knockouts” name in Impact.
“Yeah! There’s been a ton of pushback, like, right when I started with Impact of the Knockouts name and I love it,” she said. “I grew up knowing them as the Knockouts. I never felt a negative connotation towards it as a fan. I just feel like a Knockout is beautiful, is sexy, is powerful, is strong – is a Knockout, literally. I like it. I think it’s different. There’s other women’s divisions and everyone else is a woman, and I feel like it gets grouped in with the Diva era, but I think that the connotations and just the way that they were – I don’t know what the word I’m looking for – but the way that they were portrayed is completely different, what a Diva was and what a Knockout was, and I think Impact, and even when it was TNA, developed a really strong women’s division by branding them as Knockouts and then allowing them to be strong, powerful, sexy, top athletes in their company.
“I grew up watching Divas and feeling like I wanted to change that perception. I’m happy to be a Knockout. I’m happy to be the Knockouts champion, I’m happy to continue to build that brand with me now.”
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