Deonna Purrazzo made her buzzworthy AEW debut on the May 4 episode of AEW Dynamite, and she’s happy with the way the high-pressure situation turned out.
“The Virtuosa” has been starring for IMPACT Wrestling since 2020, and she finally competed in an AEW ring when she faced Mercedes Martinez in an ROH Women’s World Championship match last Wednesday.
During an appearance on The Universal Wrestling Podcast, Purrazzo reflected on the experience and explained that she was glad she got to work with her close friend, Britt Baker. The former IMPACT Knockouts World Champion noted that wrestling for AEW was a full circle moment because her planned participation in All In, the precursor to AEW, didn’t pan out.
“It was really cool,” said Purrazzo. “Obviously Britt Baker’s my best friend, so it was something we had bee pushing for like a year, it seems like, just to work together in some capacity. So it was nice to be there with her and see a lot of familiar faces. I think for me it was just really full circle because I was supposed to be at All In, which was the precursor to AEW and then that didn’t work out. So now fast-forward two years, when I was released, it was just a weird period. I didn’t know that I was gonna be welcome at AEW or what. Landed in IMPACT and now it’s just like everything has come together. I’m a true believer in everything happens for a reason and the way it’s meant to be. So this is my journey, and it’s been really, really cool.”
While Purrazzo is usually featured on IMPACT’s weekly TV show, the program is taped ahead of time, so she’s not used to performing live on television. She acknowledged the pressure that came with this dynamic, along with the main-event spotlight, and stated that the bout turned out “really great.”
“[It was] A lot of pressure,” said Purrazzo. “IMPACT does our live pay-per-views, there’s like four every years and then we do these like app specials that are live. But I don’t necessarily do live TV every week like the people on AEW. So it was even more pressure for me to be like can I still do this? I hadn’t done live TV since NXT, so that’s two years. So I was like oh gosh, and we have a commercial break and we have a picture-in-picture. There’s so many facets to this that we have to get right because we’re the main event. But I think it turned out really, really great. I think that I got to put my best foot forward, IMPACT’s best foot forward, and it’s just a really exciting time for me right now.”
The IMPACT star also made it clear that performing for AEW’s national audience meant a lot to her, as she couldn’t even recall the last time she had the chance to wrestle for nearly one million people.
“When it came to, ‘Okay, now you’re gonna do it on Dynamite, didn’t know it was gonna be the main event, didn’t know where it was gonna be, when it was gonna be,” said Purrazzo. “But it was going to be Dynamite, I was like a million people are gonna watch me wrestle, and I couldn’t even tell you the last time that happened. So yes, I just think yeah I win in this whole situation.
“…Numbers came out and it was like 800,000 people watching myself and Mercedes Martinez, that’s like beyond my wildest dreams.”
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