Deonna Purrazzo Wants Match Against AEW’s Britt Baker
Impact Knockout's Champion and AAA Reina de Reinas Champion Deonna Purrazzo joined Busted Open Radio to promote Impact's Bound for Glory event this Saturday. Purrazzo talked about the Forbidden Door between Impact and several other promotions, how it's made things fun in wrestling again and opened the door for her to potentially wrestle, or team, with her good friend, AEW Women's World Champion Dr. Britt Baker DMD.
"I think that's what made wrestling fun again," Purrazzo said. "It's kind of given us this resurgence in pro wrestling, especially over the last year that this door has been opened. Not just for myself but for everyone, there's so many dream matches on the table. Fans are excited to see who will pop up and where they'll pop up and who they'll be working with. So for people to have dream matches of me is kind of wild, because I had so many dream matches and so many once in a lifetime opportunities this past year. And there's not a lot of firsts yet.
"So to have that crossover with the women and possibly wrestle someone like Britt or tag with someone like Britt, who is my best friend in real life. So that adds another element into it. It would just be very special for us, I think as friends, but for women's wrestling too. And that's the whole point of all this. It's to grow and evolve women's wrestling. We haven't had a lot of those firsts yet, so any time you can kind of get your hands on that and claim it as your own, I think it's important these days."
Purrazzo will defend her Impact Knockout's Championship at Bound for Glory against Mickie James. It's a fitting end for a competitor who's goal has always been to be a champion, as far back as when Purrazzo was in high school.
"When I was a senior in high school, one of the assignments was to write a letter to yourself five years later," Purrazzo recalled. "I actually wasn't part of that class, but I did it with one of my best friends. Five years ago, she gave me that letter and it just 'keep going until you win a championship. Have a gold. Walk down a ramp with gold.' And I think that was probably my one goal that I always wanted. I grew up a WWE fan, so of course it was to be the WWE Women's Champion. So I think that was just the goal, just to be a champion.
"And obviously with the way my career has turned out, I think dreams change and goals change. Once I realized I could go to Japan, (the goal was) to go to Japan and wrestle for championship in Japan. To travel the world and get to live in different places and things like that. I think as my career started, my goals had changed, but it was always to become a champion. Because that's when you're number one. You're on top and you're the best, when you can hold that championship. Impact is the first place to let me live that a little bit. I've been a two time Knockout's Championship and now the AAA Reina de Reinas Championship. So I'm living that dream every day."
Prior to joining Impact, Purrazzo worked for WWE from 2018 to 2020, after working as an unsigned talent on and off since 2014. While Purrazzo has been critical of her time in WWE in the past, she took the time to point out some positives as well.
"It's funny cause it's easy to harp on the negative and easy to harp on the 'should've, could've, wished this would've happened,'" Purrazzo said. "But when I remind myself that I did get a debut match on RAW, and I wrestled Asuka and had a twelve minute, two segment competitive match, those are things that, at that point in my life, didn't seem possible. I did get a lot of opportunities, I got to do a lot of cool things. It's just having to remind myself, because that negative in that, I don't want to say bitterness, but I was bitter when I was released. That always comes to the forefront. But I had these moments and in wrestling I guess you can never say never. So who knows what I'll be able to do five years from now."
If you use any of the quotes in this article, please credit Busted Open Radio and provide a h/t to Wrestling Inc. for the transcription