The new ROH Women’s World Champion was contacted for the title tournament in 2021.
The January 13th episode of IMPACT Wrestling on AXS was headlined by a title versus title match which saw AAA Reina de Reinas Champion Deonna Purrazzo versus ROH Women’s World Champion Rok-C. Purrazzo used a modified ‘Fujiwara Armbar’ to submit Rok-C and become the ROH Women’s World Champion.
At Final Battle, Purrazzo made her return to ROH and confronted Rok-C which led to their match on IMPACT TV. Bobby Cruise, who worked closely with the Ring of Honor women’s division shared that he and Maria Kanellis-Bennett wanted Purrazzo in Ring of Honor months prior to Final Battle. Deonna told Jim Varsallone during an interview that the company wanted her in the Women’s Title tournament that was on by Rok-C.
Right, and that’s what makes Rok-C, who is ‘The Prodigy’, super special. When IMPACT — so when I started with IMPACT, a couple months later, Ring of Honor had approached me about, you know, they were reigniting the women’s division. They wanted to do the Ring of Honor Women’s World Championship tournament, they wanted me to be a part of it and we just couldn’t make it happen, so fast forward a year, Final Battle, I get to be a part of it. I never got a pay-per-view moment at Ring of Honor so that was really special and then I’m challenging Rok-C who, you know, ‘The Prodigy’, again is like looking in the mirror at a younger me. You know, it was full circle and I really felt like, especially with, you know, we don’t know what’s happening with Ring of Honor right now so the fact that I at least got to close that door on a really good note and kind of right some of the wrongs that I think Bobby [Cruise] and Maria [Kanellis-Bennett] felt were there for me, that I know I felt. Especially when I was released, I didn’t know if it was an option to go back to Ring of Honor so, it just was really like, ‘I can close this chapter on a really great note’ and then to see that Ring of Honor just refuses to die. I mean they are proving they are hard to kill just as much as IMPACT is.
Heading into this past Thursday’s main event, Purrazzo was coming off a loss to Mickie James in the main event of IMPACT’s Hard To Kill pay-per-view. Purrazzo recounted the emotions she felt heading into that match as she and Mickie were the first Knockouts Title match to headline an IMPACT pay-per-view.
I think I had a lot of distractions on Saturday from the emotions I was feeling and it finally hit me when my music hit like, ‘There’s not another match after us. This is it, this is me. I have to go out there’ and gosh, I can get teary-eyed now but kind of in my entrance, I got teary-eyed and if you know me then I just [sniffle/weep] and luckily I have to have such a strong face and you know, when it was like — I could just like suck it all in and, ‘Don’t cry!’ But I literally, literally, literally was like in tears just thinking about we’re the main event and this is history-making and it’s just so special.
On the 1/20 IMPACT on AXS, Charlie Haas will be in action against Josh Alexander. He suffered a concussion during their match and to read his statement concerning the situation, check out POST Wrestling’s article about the topic.
If the quotes in this article are used, please credit Jim Varsallone with an H/T to POST Wrestling for the transcriptions.
