Deonna Purrazzo explains her hesitancy in returning to WWE.
Deonna Purrazzo became a free agent at the end of 2023 when her contract with TNA Wrestling expired. Purrazzo was one of the top Knockouts in TNA since joining the company in 2020, winning the Knockouts Championship on multiple occasions and headline pay-per-views.
Ultimately, Purrazzo signed with AEW, making her debut on the January 3rd episode of AEW Dynamite.
Speaking to Stephanie Chase, Purrazzo was asked if she had talks with WWE.
"I did. It kind of came down to a few weeks before I was a free agent of talking to everybody. Talking to Triple H and William Regal. I talked to, obviously, Tony Khan. Trying to figure out what the best decision for me was going to be. I felt, ultimately, back before I went to NXT the first time, I was supposed to be on All In. I was supposed to be doing all these great things, going back to Japan. I gave all of that up to go to NXT. It didn’t work out. I was very bitter about that, but it just didn’t work out. I learned a lot about myself. I was hesitant to go back into that situation knowing how I was treated. Wanting to avoid that at all costs. I felt like there wasn’t trust there for me to squander this really great opportunity that I knew was there for AEW. Who knows, in hindsight, had I not gone to NXT, had I been at All In, I could have been at AEW from the beginning, maybe. I could’ve been here for five-and-a-half to six years. I was really worried that I would be giving up something really great for something that I already knew the potential outcome of," she said.
Purrazzo signed with WWE in 2018 and was part of the NXT roster. She famously never won a match before being released in 2020.
Purrazzo will face Thunder Rosa in a Texas Bull Rope match on the August 10th episode of AEW Collision. Fans can check out the lineup for the show by clicking here.
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