Ex-NXT Star Accuses WWE Of Talent Hoarding (To Spite AEW)

Recent WWE release Deonna Purrazzo has been talking a little more about her recent departure from NXT mere months after she debuted. And she seemingly has some pretty choice words for the company, mostly aimed at their approach to signing talent simply to stop other promotions from picking them up.

Thanks to a chat with The Wrestling Inc Daily podcast, Purrazzo - who has been widely linked with signing with AEW soon - revealed that she believes WWE only signed her because she had been announced for All Elite's All In PPV:

"Yes, and I probably said that to some of the wrong people in NXT. But I 100 percent feel like me being announced for All In… this culminated in, 'she's gonna go somewhere else and do something good with other people' so we're gonna bring her here."

Rather more caustically, Purrazzo also levelled some accusations at the company, suggesting malicious practice in how they sign up talent without having much intention of using them or plans beyond the signing:

"If they had done something with me, then that would have been fine. But I feel that in the last year or two with AEW, [WWE] tended to be hoarding. Talent wasn't being released but so much talent was being brought in that I suffered from so many women coming in and then we're all from the same background."

You know what she's saying - WWE sign talent to keep them out of the hands of their rivals. And it's something she went on to stress a little more openly when she discussed the creative pitches she made that were batted away or ignored entirely.

"It just fell on deaf ears because the attention wasn't for me to be a Superstar. It was just maybe to take me off the table."
"I really felt the culture was 'you should be grateful for what you have and don't ask for more.' Maybe before I got to NXT there was a procedure where you came in, you learned, you waited and then maybe a year or two you'd be put on TV. But when I started, there was women that came from the indies and were successful so it's like, I'm not gonna sit around and wait. I'm not gonna twiddle my thumbs and be happy I have a job at NXT. I'm gonna push the boundaries and push you to do more with me."

And she says she wasn't the only one to express those feelings. In fact, Purrazzo says some of the stars released in WWE's huge, surprising cull recently were the same folk who had expressed their unhappiness with their lot with the company:

"I know I felt that way and there's a ton of people who felt that way. Ultimately, when all of these releases happened it was the people voicing frustration and maybe the idea that they didn't wanna be here anymore if nothing was gonna happen. Maybe being released was the best option and I think that was the case with a lot of people that ended up being released."

Needless to say, Purrazzo has some regrets about signing with WWE at all, but as she said to Fightful recently, the opportunity wasn't really one she could just turn down:

“It was kind of like, well, shoot. This is my dream job. Do I give it up and hope it comes around again? Or do I just do it and say I did it and see what happens? Obviously, I did it and it obviously it turned out that it was because I was with Ring of Honor, it was because All In was happening."

That same Fightful interview sheds a little more light on how Purrazzo felt pressured to sign at that specific time, with the inference being that it absolutely was to stop her appearing at All In. Almost out of spite:

"I tried to get away with doing a few final Ring of Honor things and putting All In under that Ring of Honor umbrella and being like, they’ve been really great to me, I don’t want to end things on a bad note with them. I’d really like to keep the date, but… Actually, it was put to me, now that I’m talking about it, ‘Well, if you do All In, that’s six weeks of pay and six weeks of TV you’re being held off of.’ I was like, ‘Okay, well, they must have something for me that they want to do with me.’ Obviously they didn’t, but it was more of like, do I just do this and say I did it and see what happens and I can always leave if I’m unhappy. I think that’s been my mindset from the get of this is an experiment for both of us. If it works then this is all I’ve ever wanted and if it doesn’t, I’m confident I can go back and do what I was doing before.”

Using a star's ambition against them isn't a great look.

So, will it have an impact on the possibility of Purrazzo possibly signing with AEW in the near future? She's unclear herself.

"I don't know. I feel like there was probably some, 'Oh, that sucks' because I commit to doing All In and I actually tried to push my WWE signing date back so I could still do All In. But WWE wasn't having it. I have to pick and choose those battles but I don't if it's affected anyone negatively. That's not anything I've heard or has stopped me from being friendly with people that work for AEW."

She also says that it sucks that her dream didn't work out as she wanted and that she may now have put a target on her back by suggesting she wants to prove WWE wrong. And when her non-compete clause runs out this week, we'll presumably see exactly where she's going to be doing that.