“I just felt like there were so many excuses” – Deonna Purrazzo opens up on WWE refusing the Virtuosa gimmick and asking her to come up with another character.
Deonna Purrazzo was the Impact Knockouts Champion until recently when. At Bound for Glory she was originally scheduled to face Kylie Rae, however, an injury to her saw Purrazzo defending and dropping her title to surprise opponent Su Yung, bringing an end to her reign at 98 days.
Also read: Johnny Gargano becomes first ever 2-time NXT North American Champion
At just 26, there is lots of time for multiple runs at the top from the former champ and without being disrespectful to her current company, seems all but assured of a shot at glory in either of WWE or AEW. In fact, she joined the former a couple of years ago. However, she failed to get the company to understand her character and was let go off in April due to the pandemic.
Deonna Purrazzo opens up on WWE refusing the Virtuosa gimmick
“The Virtuosa persona really started at Ring of Honor back when I was there and building their women’s division and they just kind of needed someone other than Deonna Purrazzo is the way it was told to me,” Purrazzo told Wrestling Observer Radio. “I really just wanted Virtuosa because I thought it was a nice word that tied in my Italian heritage and it was never meant to be anything more than that. Going into NXT right from Ring of Honor, I didn’t expect to need a character more than I was – ‘I’m a wrestler and I’m Italian!’ So, when I got that feedback, not that it was shocking, but it was like I need to put some real work into this.”
She revealed that she tried her best to convince the WWE to allow her to use the Virtuosa gimmick but in the end, nothing came off it.
“I wrote up a character synopsis,” she continued. “I wrote up promo ideas, and I pitched to have a manager because I know promos aren’t necessarily my strongest thing. Then the feedback was ‘It’s too outlandish of a character and you need to be more real-life’ and I was like well, the Virtuosa is then a transformation – we saw me be an enhancement talent and now I’ve traveled the world and come into my own and here I am with this new outlook on wrestling. That fell on deaf ears because it was too real life, and then it was ‘We don’t understand what Virtuosa means’ and I just felt like there were so many excuses and I was the person where it didn’t matter what I said or did or changed, they had an opinion and that was that.”
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