Deonna Purrazzo Opens Up About Being Approached By WWE When She Was In ROH, Having To Drop Out Of ALL IN

Former NXT star Deonna Purrazzo recently spoke with Fightful to discuss her WWE release. Highlights from the interview are below.

Being approached by WWE while she was in ROH:

It was the WrestleMania in New Orleans and SHIMMER had their all women’s show and that was the day that Canyon Ceman (of WWE) approached me and had said, ‘Hey, we’d really like to hire you.’ I was like, ‘Well, you can’t, because I’m employed at Ring of Honor.’ He was like, ‘Well, I thought we had discussed taking a short term contract.’ I said, ‘We didn’t discuss anything. That is not your choice. I do have a six month opt-out, but I don’t know if that’s something I’m willing to do right now.’ He put it very frank, ‘This is your opportunity and I don’t know if this is going to be available in a year.

Having to give up ALL IN:

It was kind of like, well, shoot. This is my dream job. Do I give it up and hope it comes around again? Or do I just do it and say I did it and see what happens? Obviously, I did it and it obviously it turned out that it was because I was with Ring of Honor, it was because All In was happening. I tried to get away with doing a few final Ring of Honor things and putting All In under that Ring of Honor umbrella and being like, they’ve been really great to me, I don’t want to end things on a bad note with them. I’d really like to keep the date, but… Actually, it was put to me, now that I’m talking about it, ‘Well, if you do All In, that’s six weeks of pay and six weeks of TV you’re being held off of.’ I was like, ‘Okay, well, they must have something for me that they want to do with me.’ Obviously they didn’t, but it was more of like, do I just do this and say I did it and see what happens and I can always leave if I’m unhappy. I think that’s been my mindset from the get of this is an experiment for both of us. If it works then this is all I’ve ever wanted and if it doesn’t, I’m confident I can go back and do what I was doing before.

Wishing you could have worked ALL IN:

Yes, but hindsight is so 20/20. I would have never felt that way had my WWE tenure not ended up this way, you know? That’s just life. You have to pick and choose what you think is best for you. Unfortunately maybe going to WWE at that time and being part of NXT then wasn’t what was best for me. But, who would have known it would have turn out this way?