Deonna Purrazzo On Why Gail Kim Is a Contender For GOAT Of Women’s Wrestling

Deonna Purrazzo considers Gail Kim one of the all-time great women’s wrestlers, something she spoke about in a new interview. Purrazzo was a guest on the Digital Social Hour and during the appearance she was asked about who her women’s wrestling GOAT is, naming Gail Kim as the first that comes to mind.

“My brain always goes to like Gail Kim, who started in WWE, didn’t really do too much, got released, went to TNA and really made her name,” Purrazzo began (per Fightful). “And then left TNA, went back to WWE, wasn’t happy. There’s this like iconic moment of Gail’s where she’s in a battle royal with like, let’s just say it’s 12 or 15 other women, and she rolls out of the ring before she’s supposed to and just leaves the match and it kind of was like an unheard of moment of like… wrestlers in general just don’t do that, and here’s a woman who believes so much in herself and the things she’s accomplished before she got to WWE, she’s doing that. And she kind of wrote this like unspoken rite of passage for all of us that when I got to work with her at TNA.”

She continued, “It was so like, I think she saw a lot of me in herself and I saw a lot of my journey in herself that I think that’s the GOAT. I think she has transcended wrestling in terms of the opportunity she’s got outside of it. I think that she said, I don’t give a fuck what you think of me or what you think my potential is or what my boundaries are. I’m going to exceed them and I just believe in strong women believing in themselves and advocating for themselves and I’m such an outspoken New Jersey girl that’s like, hey, you can’t tell me nothing. I believe in myself and I’m going to tell you how I feel about every situation I’m in. I just think she kind of wrote that passage for us. So, while I think I’m a GOAT in a lot of ways, I think that she’s the OG for me. She’s the one that I’m like, if I could have a career identical to hers, I would be successful at the end of the day.”

Kim has been more or less retired as a competitor since early 2018, though she came back for a couple of matches in TNA in 2019 and then 2023. The latter took place during the 1,000th episode of Impact and saw her on the winning side of a 10-Knockout tag team match.