This past Monday, IMPACT Wrestling’s Deonna Purrazzo officially departed the company and became a free agent. Over the past two and a half years since debuting there, Purrazzo became one of the promotion’s top female stars and held the Knockouts Championship on three separate occasions. Her last reign with the belt only ended a few months ago when she was dethroned by Trinity, the former Naomi in WWE, at Slammiversary 2023.
Just days after her free agency became official, new details on Purrazzo’s future have come to light. Fightful report that several companies expressed their interest before she left IMPACT and that AEW in particular has had internal discussions with her directly. The company is said to be hopeful that they could acquire her services now that she’s available and that Purrazzo herself is interested in appearing there over anywhere else.
Additionally, it was noted that WWE had also been in contact but sources within the company noted to Fightful that most, if not all, of their discussions with free agents had been put on hold until the new year began. If Purrazzo does end up in AEW, it would not be her first experience with the promotion. Back in May 2022, her AEW debut headlined an episode of Dynamite where she lost to Mercedes Martinez in a unification match for the ROH Women’s World Championship.
The cross-promotional match came about as a result of Purrazzo winning the belt from inaugural champion Rok-C, now NXT’s Roxanne Perez, on IMPACT programming earlier that year. However, she was forced to miss her first scheduled title defense at ROH Supercard of Honor XV due to a direct scheduling conflict with IMPACT Multiverse of Matches 2022. Martinez was crowned interim champion at the ROH pay-per-view as a direct result, leading to the unification match the following month.