One of AEW’s newest signings is Deonna Purrazzo. The 29-year-old wrestler has competed in several promotions in her decade-long career. WWE was one of the companies she worked for. Recently, Purrazzo reflected on how her tenure worked out, or didn’t, in other ways.
On the latest episode of Chris Jericho’s Talk Is Jericho podcast, The Virtuosa was a special guest. During the episode, Purrazzo shared her experience working in WWE. She mentioned that while she wrestled in Raw, SmackDown, and NXT, she did not get the respect she assumed she would receive.
“I mean I’ve talked about it endlessly but it was bad. It was bad. You know, I felt like because I had so much experience working with WWE in an ‘extra’ roll. But then, I was traveling for weeks as Luchadora. I had been on Raw and SmackDown actually wrestling, I had then been on NXT TV a ton. I just felt like… Not that I earned more when I got there that I was given. But there was a respect level that I thought would carry over into now that I got the job I think. And I found out real quick that it didn’t matter that I had done all those things. And it was silly things like, obviously the crowd then, knew who I was.”
Deonna Purrazzo on being asked to ‘Wand’ people at the door
“So Live Events you’re expected to like ‘wand’ people at the door. And I’m like, ‘These people know who I am.’ Or like, ‘Be the person that takes jackets from the ringside and bring them to the back.’ I’m totally fine to do that. But I am sitting here and distracting cuz the people want to talk to me. And I was like, ‘Hey I just don’t know if that’s the job for me. Is there a different job I could do?’ And it just rubbed people the wrong way. And it wasn’t that. I didn’t want to do those jobs.”
Deonna Purrazzo gave WWE an ultimatum
The Virtuosa also shared that she was too vocal about what she wanted to do in the promotion and that resulted in her being released.
“So I think I was a little bit too vocal about the things that I thought weren’t right or should be changed. And then when it came to me being TV ready or whatever, I was very vocal about like, ‘Just tell me what you don’t like and what you do like. And I’ll do the things you do like and I’ll work on the things you don’t.’ Like, ‘Just be straight up. I am a 100% honest person. Just be honest with me.’ And no one could tell me, ‘We don’t like this, we do…’
“And finally, I just had a breaking point. Like… ‘This isn’t working for anybody. It sure as hell not working for me. So either you going to tell me what I am doing wrong and I could fix it so I could be on TV cuz I came here to be a TV star. Or I’m not going to be a TV star and you should just let me go.’ And yeah, I was let go a couple of weeks later.”
Do you think Purrazzo could have been a top champion in WWE?
