Deonna Purrazzo has been in the pro wrestling business for over a decade.
But her father just recently became a fan.
“The Virtuosa” appeared as a guest on the AEW Unrestricted podcast for an interview, during which she spoke about how her father didn’t become a fan of hers until she made her AEW debut on television in New Jersey earlier this year.
“There was one moment that my dad finally got it,” she recalled. “I made him come to Hammerstein Ballroom for a Ring Of Honor show. He has a co-worker who is a really big wrestling fan and he was like, ‘Can Mike come to the show?’ I said, ‘The only way I’ll get Mike a ticket is if you come with him. You’re done dodging me.’ He walked in, and I’m really glad this was his first experience, because Hammerstein is huge right? At that time with Bullet Club & The Elite, the whole audience was covered in Bullet Club shirts and he just kinda looked around like, ‘I get it.’ I had wrestled and then I went and got popcorn and drinks and I went and sat with him and his friend for the rest of the show. He was like, ‘Cody Rhodes is wrestling. You didn’t tell me you knew Cody Rhodes, that’s Dusty Rhodes’ son.’ I was like, ‘I did not know that you knew who Dusty Rhodes was.’ I had this really cool bonding experience like, oh, you do know a little bit about wrestling and you maybe pretended that you didn’t.”
Purrazzo continued, “Fast forward now, I make my debut, there’s my dad crying. When Renee came to the back, he had said to me, ‘I think I’m a wrestling fan now.’ What other place can you go to and you can cheer and you can boo and you can say nasty things about people and everyone else in the audience is doing it, and you’re not being judged. He had the time of his life at Prudential Center and there’s only been a few times where I’ve seen my dad so happy and so free and loose and excited. My wedding day was one of them, and Prudential Center in Newark was the other time.”
Check out the complete interview at Spotify.com. H/T to Fightful.com for transcribing the above quotes.
