Current independent wrestling star Deonna Purrazzo, recently spoke with Jay Reddick of the Orlando Sentinel. Purrazzo discussed her small stature not affecting her on her path to success, being a part of WWE’s Mae Young Classic (she competed in a side-match but not the actual tournament) & more.
Here are the highlights: (if you are going to use any of the quotes below, please give credit to the Orlando Sentinel with an H/T to eWrestlingNews for the transcriptions)
Mae Young Classic:
“Everyone involved knew how special those shows were. It was a sisterhood, these were people who had never met before that weekend, just heard about each other, but they had a common goal to knock it out of the park and they did. They did Mae Young proud and helped women’s wrestling grow up.”
Growing Up A Wrestling Fan:
“When I was growing up, my crazy plan was to be a cheerleader at the University of Kentucky and train at Ohio Valley Wrestling with Rip Rogers. It wasn’t exactly possible, I tried college, but wrestling got in the way. When I was a kid, my mom and dad said: ‘It’s a phase, she’ll grow out of it’. Then when I didn’t, they said, ‘If this is what she wants, we don’t have a choice.’ My mom was angry when she had to come sign paperwork and found out I signed up to train, but eventually they realized, ‘Oh, she’s really doing this.’”
ROH’s Women Of Honor:
“I never thought [Women of Honor] was something that was possible. I grew up watching WWE and wanting to be a Diva, but once I got into the business I was exposed to other companies. [ROH] put us at the forefront and let us write our own history for women in this company.”
Different Opinions Of Wrestling & Her Style Of The Sport:
“I watch all of it, but when I train, it still comes down to old-school American psychology. You can bring all sorts of different styles into that. I just turned 23, but with my style, I could be doing this for another 25 years. Wrestling can be whatever you want it to be, wrestling is predetermined, it’s not based on fact, it’s based on opinion. Tom Brady is the best quarterback in the NFL because he was the best in his college, because he was the best in his high school, that’s a fact, the stats say so. But in wrestling, we can both watch WrestleMania III and I can say the best match was Savage and Steamboat; you could say Hogan vs. Andre and no one is wrong. How great is that?”
