Deonna Purrazzo Says She Wants Chelsea Green & Mickie James in Impact Wrestling
Deonna Purrazzo is hopeful that she’ll be able to reunite with Chelsea Green in Impact now that Green has been released from WWE. Purrazzo spoke with TalkSport for a new interview and talked about WWE’s recent talent releases, retiring Jazz and more. You can check out the highlights below:
On Jazz’ retirement: “I was not aware we were building to something like this when Jazz first came into IMPACT. I was so excited. People thought The Virtuosa was being condescending on TV – and she was – but Deonna the person watched Jazz when I was a little girl. When I grew up, she was such a force in women’s wrestling and you always heard her name being talked about as being ahead of her time. It was really fun to get to interact with her a little bit, wrestle her a little bit. I think especially for women that grew up wanting to be wrestlers around my age, who wanted to be a part of this change in women’s wrestling we’ve seen in the past seven or eight years, it’s a dream come true to work with and interact with these people. To call them your friend, your co-worker, to defeat them! [laughs]. IMPACT has come full circle in so many different ways that getting to wrestle Jazz at Hardcore Justice was just one more of those ways.”
On bringing The Virtuosa character to IMAPCT: “When I started with IMPACT which is just shy of a year ago now, the presentation of The Virtuosa was 100 percent things I had pitched in NXT. The way we kind of presented her really being two of three steps ahead of her opponent, she’s smart, intellectual and a student of the professional wrestling business, being the technical craftsman, it really was how I wanted The Virtuosa to be presented. I wanted her to be larger than life and to tie in all the elements of history, my culture and my ethnicity that I really think The Virtuosa encaptures, which is very broad! I think a lot of wrestling characters get fallen into ‘it needs to be straight-forward and everyone needs to understand’ but I think The Virtuosa is very nuanced. It’s part of my condescension to be like ‘I don’t really understand’ but maybe you’re not supposed to understand because you’re not a Virtuosa! So I think the character was maybe a little too broad for other people to understand, but the way I wanted it presented when I came in last May, we hit it nail on the head. We’ve been able to develop the character which is exciting and I’m developing every week in front of everyone’s eyes on TV.”
On the potential influx of women’s talent to Impact: “I talked to Taylor [Wilde], probably almost a year ago about my career up until this point, just what I was starting to do in IMPACT and she was just starting to come back into the wrestling scene, so to have her back in IMPACT is so exciting. At this point, I’ve got to defeat ODB, I just retired Jazz, so is this one more IMPACT legend I get to work with, but also defeat?! I don’t know. That possibility is exciting.
“But then beyond Taylor Wilde, more surprises are coming. There’s just a ton of releases that happened so there’s someone like Chelsea Green who is my best friend and one of my favourite opponents in the ring. So if she was to come to IMPACT when she’s able, that would be great. Mickie James is another former Knockouts champion, that would be phenomenal. Our division has been a staple of IMPACT and TNA as a whole. So the fact that there’s opportunities to grow and grow and grow is so exciting for me.”
On recruiting Chelsea Green and Mickie James: “I mean, especially Chelsea, but it’s kind of hard. Because when I was released last year, I was happy about it. I was kind of like ‘woohoo! Freedom! I get to be my own self.’ That’s not a lot of the cases this time around. Especially Chelsea, it was more of a shock. So I’ve just kind of been like let the dust settle and then we’ll talk about it all. Obviously IMPACT is where I want her to be and I want her to thrive and succeed. I think being so close and having the relationship we do, her seeing me thrive the last year too, is kind of a relief. And seeing her fiance Matt Cardona thrive in the last year is relieving, too. Because it’s like I thought I was going to be at this place, I thought it was going to be my forever home, but I’ll be OK no matter what. Been there, done that. I’m sure IMPACT would love to have her back. She’s a former Knockouts champion too…”
