Deonna Purrazzo looks back on her WWE release back in 2020.
The former multi-time IMPACT Knockouts Champion discussed this topic during a recent interview with Busted Open Radio, where she referred to that horrific moment in her career as a humbling experience.
I think it (most humbling experience of my career) was getting released from WWE and just having to kind of go back to the drawing board and figure out — we talked about it. ‘Do I even want to be a wrestler? Do I have a passion for this anymore?’ And kind of just having to pick yourself up by the bootstraps and be like, find my passion again and then find the ability to find my confidence.
The Virtuosa would join the IMPACT roster shortly after her WWE release, but she states that her confidence was at an all-time low coming in.
I had zero confidence when I came into IMPACT and you know, Tommy (Dreamer) and I talked about it, Scott D’Amore and I talked about it. I was this lost puppy that didn’t know who she was or what she could do and I needed someone to believe in me so I could maybe believe in myself and I think that-that reality is the most humbling of like, I’m not all I thought I was.
Purrazzo then looks back at when she first joined NXT with a bunch of hype from the indies, later admitting that she probably went into her run with a big head because of previous accomplishments.
I went into NXT with all this indie hype, but I’d just been able to travel the world and I worked with WWE in so many different ways up until that point that maybe I went in with a little bit of a big head like, hey, I deserve to be here. I proved I deserved to be here and it was like, b*tch, you don’t deserve anything and you know, that was the really humbling experience of like, okay, what do I do to prove myself again and find if I love this?
Purrazzo is set to compete for the Knockouts Championship at this weekend’s Rebellion pay-per-view. The latest card can be found here.
(H/T and transcribed by Post Wrestling)