IMPACT superstar and new ROH women’s champion Deonna Purrazzo recently spoke with the Miami Herald about all things pro-wrestling, including how her partnership with Matt Rehwoldt came about, and how she hopes to be paired with Steve Maclin somewhere down the line. Highlights from the interview are below.
On Steve Maclin’s success in IMPACT and how she hopes they can be paired at some point down the line:
I think one day, there will be space for me and Steve [Maclin] to be a tag team. I think that as people become familiar with our relationship and with who Steve Maclin is, there’s definitely space for that and I think that IMPACT is open to all possibilities of intergender wrestling, so I wouldn’t put intergender tag titles past them one day, who knows? But we did the Homecoming tournament this past year and a lot of people did wanna see me be a tag team with Steve. I just think that it’s not the time for him to be in a tag team with me. I think down the road, 100 percent. It’s something we joked about, but who Steve Maclin is right now needs his own identity and he needs to do all of the singles competition things that he can to establish a relationship and a repertoire with the fans because before IMPACT Wrestling, I don’t think anyone knew what Steve Maclin was capable of as his own, let alone as a tag team so, it’s been really so incredible to see what he could do. His match with Trey [Miguel] at Hard To Kill was — got a ‘this is awesome’ chant as well, it was phenomenal and hopefully one day, there’s space for us to be on-camera together but, I am gonna put that in the future because I want the spotlight on him totally. Gosh, I just think he’s this crazy hybrid. He’s so intense and so focused but then he also can do the high-flying and the fast-paced and he’s — if I can liken him to anyone that was ever in the X Division, he’s like the new age Samoa Joe, I think. He’s just so phenomenal and to see him spread his wings and show the world what he can do over the last, you know, six months at IMPACT has been incredible. I keep saying ‘incredible’ but, I just am so happy and proud of the work he’s put in and the things he’s been able to do thus far in his career.
Thoughts on working with Matt Rehwoldt:
It was awesome [being in the main event of Hard To Kill], which is funny. We were just talking about that ‘this is awesome’ chant. It was literally awesome for me and you know, Matt Rehwoldt was out there with me and he’s been such an integral part of everything, you know, Mickie [James] and I have done with who The Virtuosa is. We just have such great chemistry and we are just so complimentary of each other that when they said, you know, part of the storyline was that he couldn’t be out there and then we did the backstage where Gail [Kim] says, ‘Well if you touch Mickie, you’re fired’ and I just — we figured out a way to get him out there, not touch Mickie but use him because he deserved that spotlight too. He was such, such an integral part of everything, every story we had told up until that point so to give him his little ‘you deserve this’ moment too was important to me, and then once the match was over and Mickie had won, we went off-air. Scott [D’Amore] and Gail came out and gave us, you know — just hype the crowd up that we were the first-ever Knockouts main event on a pay-per-view and you know, how special that was and how great Mickie is and for everything I’ve done over the last two years. It was just — it was awesome.
(H/T and transcribed by Post Wrestling)