IMPACT Knockouts champion Deonnna Purrazzo recently spoke to Yahoo! Sports to discuss her last days at NXT, and how a simple email exchange led to her finally defending herself, which led to her eventual release and success back in IMPACT. Highlights from the interview are below.
On the email she got from NXT regarding losing to the same wrestler over and over again:
Which brings me back to that email. I’d been asked to report to a TV taping to lose to a fellow performer who’d already beaten me in quick fashion three times recently. After a year of frustration and doing anything I could to please, I finally stood up for myself by — politely — suggesting an alternative: Couldn’t I lose to someone new? Wouldn’t wrestling someone different make sense all around? The answer came back, no, you are losing to the same wrestler. No discussion, no “we understand your concern,” no sign that one side of this professional relationship was prepared to listen to the other.
Says she emailed them and said she wasn’t interested in being part of the taping:
Something changed in me. I thought about it and then I emailed back, with respect, that wasn’t in my own interests and I’d prefer not to be part of that television taping. It was very liberating. I felt like I did when I was wrestling on the independent circuit, ready to take a chance on myself again.
Says Madison Rayne instantly put her in touch with Scott D’Amore after she got fired:
Sure enough, a few days later I was fired. Within minutes my friend Madison Rayne called me and started putting things in motion for me to speak to Scott D’Amore, who runs IMPACT. Scott had heard reports that I was “difficult” but said he liked to treat people as he found them. Then he asked me something I’d be dying to hear for a very long time: He asked who I was and how I presented that on television.