Deonna Purrazzo Praises The Signings of Masha Slamovich and The IInspiration

Women’s wrestling has been celebrated and honored all week long, alongside the release of this year’s PWI Women’s 150. Among that list, included the IMPACT Knockouts Champion, Deonna Purrazzo, as she reigned supreme as #3 in the rankings.

Purrazzo is scheduled to defend her Knockouts Championship against Mickie James this Saturday, October 23rd at Impact Wrestling‘s Bound For Glory PPV.

Purrazzo’s thoughts on Masha Slamovich signing with IMPACT Wrestling after Knockouts Knockdown:

“I’ve said for 18-months that I want this division, while I’m on top, to be the most coveted around the world. I want everyone to be a part of our Knockouts Division, to want to be a part of the Knockouts Division, to want to be the Knockouts Champion. And we need women like Masha Slamovich, who is one of the best in the world coming up, putting the best out there, and putting her best foot forward.

So, I’m really honored that I kind of got to be a part of that [moment] and that it turned out she was offered a contract. That was not planned or intended, that’s just how good she is. She earned it live and in that moment. We need women like Masha, we need women like Lady Frost.

We need these up and coming independent talent who are ready to make a name for themselves and just looking for the right company to give them an opportunity. I feel very synonymous with those girls because I was very much in that same position for a long time and I’m really happy to see them thrive, because in turn it makes our entire Knockouts division thrive.

Iron sharpens iron is what I said about Masha. I feel like that’s true for so many women on the independent scene right now that could come in and have incredible matches and tell incredible stories for our Knockouts Division.”

Deonna Purrazzo also expressed high regard to the winner of the Knockouts Knockdown tournament champion, Mercedes Martinez:

“She’s someone that I wrestled some of my first matches against. She’s someone that obviously I get to wrestle now so to see her kind of being in the same space that I was when I was released from NXT, kind of just being like ‘I want to go out there and I want to do everything I can do, and I want to work for every company that I can, and make you regret it’ is how I felt.

To see she kind of has that chip on her shoulder makes me really happy because she’s more than capable. And I’d love to see her land a spot at IMPACT as well, because we need those veteran presences in our locker room.

We have quite a few women on our roster who have been with IMPACT for a long time and have that presence, but I think Mercedes Martinez is an entire entity of her own. There is no one quite like her and if you’re going to have the best division in the world, we need the best talent in the world. Mercedes Martinez is definitely in that conversation for me.”

Besides the addition of Slamovich to the Knockouts Division, like previously mentioned, IMPACT Wrestling will also be welcoming The IInspiration (formerly Peyton Royce and Billie Kay in WWE), at Bound For Glory. They vie for the Knockouts Tag Team Championships against Decay.

Deonna Purrazzo also discussed her thoughts on the IInspiration coming to IMPACT:

“I am so excited that The IInspiration is coming because I wasn’t sure if they were or not, so when it was announced at the end of Knockouts Knockdown it was like ‘hell yeah! Another victory for us’. I’m going to say the same thing I said about Mercedes [Martinez] about Cassie [Lee] and Jess [McKay], I think that they are unique in their own ways.

They could be serious and want to wrestle, but then they have this really fun, quirky, comedic side of them that I think is different, and brings something different to our Knockouts Division.

I’m excited to see who walks away as the Knockouts Tag Team Champions at Bound For Glory, but at the end of the day, the more talent that lands at IMPACT–and more than then them coming in, I really am enjoying the fact that IMPACT has become this landing zone, and people are actively seeking out IMPACT Wrestling to give them the opportunities they maybe feel they didn’t get anywhere else. So, for them to come in, I’m really excited to see what else they can do as a tag team.”

IMPACT Wrestling will be hosting Bound For Glory on Saturday, October 23rd from Las Vegas at 10pm est / 7pm pst.