Scott D’Amore felt the Knockouts Title match was the strongest story on the Hard To Kill card.
Closing out the Hard To Kill pay-per-view was the Texas Death match between Mickie James and Deonna Purrazzo for the Knockouts World Championship. James defeated Purrazzo to retain her title and is now heading into WWE’s women’s Royal Rumble match as IMPACT champion.
Mickie, Lisa Marie Varon and SoCal Val hosted a new episode of their GAW TV YouTube show and welcomed IMPACT Wrestling Executive Vice President Scott D’Amore onto the show. D’Amore detailed his thought process when deciding that James versus Purrazzo would headline Hard To Kill. He felt that they had the strongest story.
I think there were some egos that were a little bit… a little bit knocked down, a little bit bruised because the Knockouts took a slot that I think for far too long, our world title, our men’s world title has always kind of felt that was their slot and I’ve seen it happen over the years when a tag match or an X [Division] match went there and I think we saw a little bit of that. I think everybody in general, standing back looks and says, ‘Hey, it’s great, they deserve it’ but there’s also the, ‘Why isn’t it me?’ And I think that gives a great bit of, what’s the word?… A kick in the ass. You want that spot but that’s not necessarily your spot. Go there and earn it, you know? And I think the fact that Mickie [James] and Deonna [Purrazzo], two amazing athletes from really two generations that are crossing over, there’s no question that was the strongest story, there’s no question you’ve got two of the very best going out there so, I mean this from the bottom of my heart and we all do as we talked about it, you know, you two deserved to be in that spot. It wasn’t like, ‘Oh, this will be cool because’ and that’s one of the reasons why we didn’t want to talk about it ahead of time. We didn’t want to make it seem like, ‘Hey look, the Knockouts are gonna be –’ like using it as a marketing tool. It’s like very matter of fact. It’s the main event because it should be the main event, you know? It shouldn’t be that big of news that the Knockouts Title is in the main event because it’s two of the very best competitors in the entire world going out there that have had an amazing build up to it and deserved to be there and that doesn’t take anything away from the men’s world title that went out there and killed it and everybody else on this card. I think everybody, regardless of male, female, other, whatever, need to go out there and just kick ass and work hard and know that if you earn it, you’re gonna get that opportunity.
They went to discuss the family atmosphere within IMPACT and Scott brought up that they held a gender reveal party for Su Yung and Rich Swann in the wrestling ring.
Yeah, I think definitely [IMPACT Wrestling is a family] and stuff like all that stuff you [Mickie James] mentioned and then like when Rich Swann and Su Yung, they did their gender reveal party for their baby there and we used the ring in the arena and everything and had everybody around. Like those are fun events, like outside of work but all of us still there together.
Deonna Purrazzo is going one-on-one with Rok-C on tonight’s IMPACT on AXS. Purrazzo’s AAA Reina de Reinas Title is on the line along with Rok-C’s ROH Women’s World Title.
If the quotes in this article are used, please credit GAW TV with an H/T to POST Wrestling for the transcriptions.
