Deonna Purrazzo Reflects on Running Her First Event as a Promoter

During a recent interview with Fightful’s Overbooked, ROH Women’s Pure Champion Deonna Purrazzo discussed putting on her first show as a promoter with the Battle For The Brave event earlier in June. Below are some highlights from Fightful:

Deonna Purrazzo on Her Biggest Takeaway From Her First Event as a Promoter

“The biggest takeaway for me was we ran at the Rahway Rec Center, which is huge, right? But we rented the ring from someone, and we rented the lights from someone else that canceled on us last minute. We never ran a wrestling show; we just, as wrestlers, show up and the ring is built, and the light rig is up, and we do our job as the wrestler. We don’t think about what it takes to light a building that holds 1200 people, right? The guy we rented the ring from also did have lights, he was like, ‘I can bring them, no problem.’ But he’s not running in that big of a venue. During the show, I was running around trying to figure out: can the fire department- do they have floodlights that we can bring in? Can we shine them from the door into the thing?

“Luckily, Tunnel To Towers production team, Savanti, had a light that they were using backstage, so they were like, ‘We can bring that out, right?’ Just problem-solving, things that wrestlers aren’t thinking about, was my biggest takeaway. But Steve and I just wanted this event, and we wanted to treat the wrestlers that we booked how we’d want to be treated. We didn’t want to be like, ‘Hey brother, give me a rate for a charity show.’ It’s like, ‘What does it take to get you here?’ We wanted to make sure they had rooms to check in if they were getting in early; we wanted to make sure they had cars from the airport and food at the venue. Squared Circle Cafe was so generous to donate their time and services to cater for us. We really just wanted to make sure that this is an event that people hope we hold again and want to be a part of next year.”

On Plans To Put on Another Event Next Year

“Yes, we are. We’re currently working on securing a building that has air conditioning. That was another big problem; we didn’t know the Rahway Rec Center wouldn’t have air conditioning until the morning of. We were like, ‘It’s hot.’ It was the hottest day on record this year in New Jersey that day, so we were like, ‘Can you turn the air down?’ ‘We don’t have air conditioning.’ Halfway through, now there’s 700-800 people in this building, and it’s boiling.

“We had someone place an Uber Eats order for like a thousand water bottles, and we were handing them out to everyone. Steve and I were trying to make sure that everyone was taken care of. We were so fortunate that so many people supported this amazing cause. We weren’t sure if they were, and for them to turn out in the heat and stay with us until the end, our main event was The Hardys, and every single body was still in the room at the end of that show. We couldn’t be more grateful to all of you for sticking it out.”

Deonna Purrazzo recently competed on the August 27 edition of ROH on HonorClub. She defeated Lacey Lane in a Proving Ground Match.