Deonna Purrazzo on WWE Not Being a Conducive Environment for Her

– ROH Women’s Champion Deonna Purrazzo joined Busted Open Radio today to discuss her upcoming championship unification match with Mercedes Martinez on tonight’s episode of AEW Dynamite. Below are some highlights (via WrestlingInc.com):

Purrazzo on how she feels before tonight’s Dynamite: “I’ve kind of been a little jittery all week. I feel like I do always get butterflies and I don’t particularly sleep well before big things like this, whether it’s our IMPACT pay-per-views or tonight on Dynamite. I’m a little anxious. I just want to get the day started, and I want to get there. I’m walking into new territory. I don’t know a lot of these people at AEW, or I haven’t seen them in years. It’s gonna be like getting back in my groove in this new place with some new and familiar people, but I’m like a newbie here.”

Purrazzo on the latest WWE releases: “I was talking a bit about this last night. The new round of [WWE] releases and how, but not to compare because everyone’s situation is different, but that first round that I was in, there was a pandemic and there wasn’t independent wrestling happening, and there weren’t companies necessarily hiring a lot of people. It was just a very weird period for everybody.”

On being able to thrive in Impact Wrestling: “I was really able to thrive at IMPACT, and really not need the independent bookings and not do the signings because IMPACT has figured out a way to showcase everybody, and use social media to our advantage and do something like Wrestle House, where more people were being showcased in different ways, and I got to benefit from that.”

Deonna Purrazzo on how her dreams have changed, not liking the WWE system: “I think dreams change. I think as we get older and experience more things – like my dream was always to wrestle at WrestleMania and be, at the time, the Divas Champion. That’s all I knew in wrestling growing up, so that was my ultimate goal. Then I got there [to WWE], and it was like, I don’t like anything about this system, it’s just not a conducive environment for me and my dream changed. Now I just want to go somewhere that’s going to appreciate me for me, and give me an opportunity to wrestle and see what happens.”